Marks a significant development in literary recovery efforts related to Assia Wevill, who remains a critically important figure in the life and work of Sylvia Plath and the British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes. This an invaluable documentary resource for understanding a woman whose life continues to captivate readers and scholars.
"The Collected Writings of Assia Wevill marks a significant development in literary recovery efforts related to Assia Wevill (1927-1969), who remains a critically important figure in the life and work of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Sylvia Plath and the British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, two of the most famous figures in twentieth-century literature. With the permission and support of the Estate of Assia Wevill, Julie Goodspeed-Chadwick and Peter K. Steinberg secured and transcribed texts authored by her, curating them into a collected scholarly edition of her letters, journals, poems, and other creative writings. Two dozen illustrations provide glimpses of key people and moments in her life. Arranged chronologically, Part I reproduces ninety-six letters written from 1943 to 1969, which cover personal, political, and professional subjects. Part II includes Assia's journal writing, dating from 1962 to 1969, containing biographical details and stories pertaining to her life with Hughes, including in the months following Plath's death, as well as Assia's experiences as a single working mother in 1960s London. Part III collects five of her original poems along with her celebrated translations of the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, texts that she prepared in close collaboration with him. Part IV contains miscellaneous documents, including her introduction to a BBC program on Amichai's poetry that featured her Hebrew-to-English translations (read on the air by Hughes), as well as her uncompleted and unsigned last will, in which she assesses her relationships with important people in her life. The Collected Writings of Assia Wevill presents her life and work in her own words, making available many obscure materials and offering a new perspective on a fascinating woman whose life continues to captivate readers and scholars"--
