Sylvia Plath’s Letters Home tells us oddly little about matters that are none of our business anyway (her unhappy marriage to Ted Hughes) and even less about matters that are (her spurt of poetic genius).

Letters Home By Sylvia Plath Selected and edited with commentary by Aurelia Schober Plath Harper & Row, 502 pp., $12.50

As a high-school senior Sylvia Plath was already selling verse and fiction to Seventeen and Mademoiselle. She was writing in her diary sentences like, “Never, never, never will I reach the perfection I long for with all my soul— my paintings, my poems, my stories— all poor, poor reflections . . . for I have been too thoroughly conditioned to the conventional surroundings of this community . . .”; and also, “Now, now is the perfect time of my life.”

HK

About the Author

Hugh Kenner

Letters Home By Sylvia Plath Selected and edited with commentary by Aurelia Schober Plath Harper & Row, 502 pp., $12.50

As a high-school senior Sylvia Plath was already selling verse and fiction to Seventeen and Mademoiselle. She was writing in her diary sentences like, “Never, never, never will I reach the perfection I long for with all my soul— my paintings, my poems, my stories— all poor, poor reflections . . . for I have been too thoroughly conditioned to the conventional surroundings of this community . . .”; and also, “Now, now is the perfect time of my life.”