Sylvia Plath | Autograph letter signed, to Ted Hughes, "it is simple a sin not to live with you", 21 October 1956

Sylvia Plath

Autograph letter signed, to Ted Hughes ("dearest darling teddy")

finally giving vent to her frustration and loneliness at living without him ("...in spite of all my spasmodic calm & resolve I feel horrid & very black & wicked. it is simply a sin not to live with you. I could cry..."), her feeling that she would work better if he was with her, pleading that he overcome his dislike of Cambridge so they could live together ("...the one difficult act would be telling newnham (there are married students here, though few; & dr. Krook, I'm sure, would back me up) & the fulbright (they also have married students, though mostly male) & getting a place to live & moving me..."), in black ink, 6 pages, 8vo (177 x 140mm), blue stationery, [Whitstead, Newnham College, Cambridge, 21 October 1956], smudging to a few letters

The decision to live apart for the 1956-57 academic year had been made primarily out of fear that Plath would lose her Fulbright scholarship if she admitted to being married, but after three weeks apart both Plath and Hughes found their separation intolerable. The current series of letters give strong evidence of Plath's mounting loneliness, and in this letter she breaks her resolution to continue living apart. Hughes would join her in Cambridge within days, although external events played a part in bringing the couple together. One fellow student recalled that post arrived at Newnham for "Mrs Sylvia Plath Hughes", leading to the college authorities asking her directly about her marital status.  

LITERATURE:

The Letters of Sylvia Plath: Volume One, pp.1320-22