Books, Arts & Manners: Wreckage

Sylvia Plath: A Biography, by Linda Wagner-Martin (Simon & Schuster, 282 pp., $18.95)

There is a desperate need for a good biography of Sylvia Plath. Plath’s Letters Home (1975), edited by her mother, Aurelia, present an idealized view of her life; the first biography, by Edward Butscher (1977), is thoroughly inadequate; her Journals (1982), edited by Frances McCullough, are heavily censored; and her husband, Ted Hughes, has suppressed or destroyed many of her other works. Hughes, who controls Miss Plath’s literary estate, has also used his power to censor works about her; his version of their marriage has never been told. Feminists, who have virtually accused Hughes of murdering Miss Plath, have translated her into a martyr.

About the Author

Jeffrey Meyers

Mr. Meyers is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the author of John Huston: Courage and Art.

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Sylvia Plath: A Biography, by Linda Wagner-Martin (Simon & Schuster, 282 pp., $18.95)

There is a desperate need for a good biography of Sylvia Plath. Plath’s Letters Home (1975), edited by her mother, Aurelia, present an idealized view of her life; the first biography, by Edward Butscher (1977), is thoroughly inadequate; her Journals (1982), edited by Frances McCullough, are heavily censored; and her husband, Ted Hughes, has suppressed or destroyed many of her other works. Hughes, who controls Miss Plath’s literary estate, has also used his power to censor works about her; his version of their marriage has never been told. Feminists, who have virtually accused Hughes of murdering Miss Plath, have translated her into a martyr.