#lois ames

[lovingsylvia]

🥳 Happy Birthday The Bell Jar! 🎂 The Sylva Plath Calendar - 60 years ago today: Sylvia Plath‘s only novel The Bell Jar was published in the UK on Monday, 14 January 1963 by Heinemann under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas, 28 days before her death. Plath called the novel “an autobiographical apprentice work which I had to write in order to free myself from the past” and said: “What I’ve done is to throw together events from my own life, fictionalizing to add color- it’s a pot boiler really, but I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown…. I’ve tried to picture my world and the people in it as seen through the distorting lens of a bell jar” Source: Biographical Note by Lois Ames, in: The Bell Jar, Bantam Windstone, 1981 . If you want to learn more about the creation and publication history of The Bell Jar, I highly recommend Peter K. Steinberg’s blog post from 14 January 2013 at sylviaplathinfo.blogspot.com: “Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar Published 50 Years Ago Today”. . Photo: The synopsis page from the uncorrected pre-publication proof copy of Sylvia Plath’s ‘The Bell Jar’ that was also included in the first Heinemann edition; with Plath’s Devon address in her handwriting. This copy belonged to her daughter, Frieda Hughes. Sold for £ 75,000 at an auction at Bonhams in March 2018. 📷 bonhams.com/auction/24633/lot/359/plath-sylvia-the-bell-jar-by-victoria-lucas-sylvia-plaths-uncorrected-proof-copy-with-her-own-manuscript-corrections-and-ownershsip-inscription-heinemann-1962/

[lovingsylvia]

The “Sylvia Plath Calendar” - 56 years ago today:

The Bell Jar was published in the UK on Monday, 14 January 1963 by Heinemann under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. 28 days later Sylvia Plath committed suicide.

“What I’ve done is to throw together events from my own life, fictionalizing to add color- it’s a pot boiler really, but I think it will show how isolated a person feels when he is suffering a breakdown…. I’ve tried to picture my world and the people in it as seen through the distorting lens of a bell jar” “an autobiographical apprentice work which I had to write in order to free myself from the past” Source: Biographical Note by Lois Ames, In: The Bell Jar, Bantam Windstone, 1981 ***

If you want to learn more about the creation and publication history of The Bell Jar, I highly recommend Peter K. Steinberg’s blog post at https://sylviaplathinfo.blogspot.com/!

[persimmonsprecision]

Lois Ames, in a letter to Anne Sexton

It should begin with the crash down the stairs, down the gold carpet, the broken hip, the pain, then the hospital, the doctor coming with the circles under his eyes to talk about his wife having read his poems, the broken hip, the broken heart, all foreshadowed and then back, back, back. [...] It’s only how I would write that if I were you.

[watchoutforintellect]

That day when one is supposed to be dead, the birth-night of the soul – Nov 9th…

Anne Sexton - from a letter to Lois Ames featured in A Self-Portrait in Letters

[watchoutforintellect]

But I forgot about the diet from death. I went on a binge.

Anne Sexton - from a letter to Lois Ames featured in A Self-Portrait in Letters

[watchoutforintellect]

I want to see if I can make it despite fears. I am all fear.

Anne Sexton - from a letter to Lois Ames featured in A Self-Portrait in Letters

[wellconstructedsentences]

It is three at night. I have something to say. You are so valuable. You shine out. You are a magic star. You are a body of blood made beautiful. How I admire, sit back and adore you. How thirsty I am for that. How you feed me.

Anne Sexton to Lois Ames

[watchoutforintellect]

Q: Did Sexton and Plath’s mental illness contribute positively to their poetry?

A: Each wrote in spite of their illness. It took enormous courage to do this. 

Lois Ames - from an Interview with Doug Holder