Sylvia Plath | Typed letter signed, to Edith & William Hughes, on life in America, 2 February 1958

Sylvia Plath

Typed letter signed, to Edith and William Hughes ("Dear Ted's mother & dad")

describing Hughes's new job "as Instructor in English at the University of Massachusetts in the next town, about 15 miles away", their plans for the next year ("...Ted wants not to teach but get some other kind of work (without homework or extra preparation) in Boston next year while I write for a change...") and their eventual return to Europe in autumn 1959, admitting her own exhaustion following a bout of pneumonia, 3 pages, 8vo (187-195mm x 147mm), blue-grey paper, [337 Elm Street, Northampton, MA,] 2 February [1958], autograph envelope, creased, light staining to first leaf 

This letter was written on the eve of the new semester at Smith. Plath had not enjoyed teaching at her alma mater and had turned down the opportunity to stay for a second year, thus earning herself the disapproval of much of the faculty: "What do you need to write?", asked the professor who had previously supervised her thesis (Clark, Red Comet, p.514). Neither was comfortable with small-town American life, and this letter announced their decision to move to Boston once her contract with Smith ended. 

LITERATURE

The Letters of Sylvia Plath: Volume Two, pp.207-9