
Letters Home
By Sylvia Plath
1975
First Published
4.22
Average Rating
502
Number of Pages
Letters Home represents Sylvia Plath's correspondence from her time at Smith College in the early fifties, through her meeting with, and subsequent marriage to, the poet Ted Hughes, up to her death in February 1963. The letters are addressed mainly to her mother, with whom she had an extremely close and confiding relationship, but there are also some to her brother Warren and her benefactress Mrs Prouty. Plath's energy, enthusiasm and her passionate tackling of life burst onto these pages, providing us with a vivid and intimate portrait of a woman who has come to be regarded as one of the greatest of twentieth-century poets. In addition to her capacity for domestic and writerly happiness, however, these letters also hint at Plath's potential for deep despair, which reached its crisis when she holed up in a London flat for the terrible winter of 1963.
Avg Rating
4.22
Number of Ratings
3,101
5 STARS
45%
4 STARS
35%
3 STARS
16%
2 STARS
2%
1 STARS
1%
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Author

Sylvia Plath
Author · 47 books
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. Known primarily for her poetry, Plath also wrote a semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. The book's protagonist, Esther Greenwood, is a bright, ambitious student at Smith College who begins to experience a mental breakdown while interning for a fashion magazine in New York. The plot parallels Plath's experience interning at Mademoiselle magazine and subsequent mental breakdown and suicide attempt.