![]() ![]() “Tragic Death of Young Authoress,” the headline blared, before subordinating her reputation to that of her husband. ![]() Pancras Chronicle’s report was more satisfying, and more truthful. In its Fleet Street sensationalism, the St. Plath’s hometown paper, The Townsman of Wellesley, falsely reported that she had died of “virus pneumonia.” It nodded toward her literary career, “as poet and author.” But it did not name her poetry collection, “The Colossus,” first published in 1960 to positive reviews in the British press, or say that her poems had been printed in prestigious magazines like The New Yorker. The notices were almost as terse as a headstone: of London, England, formerly of Wellesley, Massachusetts, wife of Ted Hughes, mother of Frieda and Nicolas (her son’s given name mysteriously missing its “h”), daughter of Aurelia, older sister of Warren. ![]() To find them, a sharp-eyed reader had to look under “H,” for Plath’s married name, Hughes. There were eight-line death notices in tiny print in The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald. And although she was a published poet who had received good reviews, and had determinedly made her way in a literary world dominated by men, the press did not pay much attention. Steinberg, an editor, with Karen Kukil, of “The Letters of Sylvia Plath,” the second volume of which is to be published this year. Because the death was a suicide, Plath’s family did not much advertise it, said Peter K. ![]()
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