Description

• Stated First American Edition [Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1962]; xii, 84 [6 inc A Note on the Type & A Note About The Author]; bright green cloth, blindstamped SP on front, dark green titling on spine, pink topstain, penned name to ffep, a near-fine copy; in like dark blue dustjacket, unclipped [$4.00], rubbed, slightly chipped at spine head
• Plath’s first published collection & the only collection published in her lifetime
• Contains ten fewer poems than the UK Edition, due to the Publisher’s concern of “a too-obvious Roethke influence” [Tabor, pp10; Theodore Roethke was an American poet who Plath noted as highly influential in her own poetry]
• Handsome jacket design by Vincent Torre
• The title poem uses a broken statue as a metaphor to explore the relationship with her father [who died in 1940 when Plath was only 8]
• From the Melanie Smith Collection of books by Sylvia Plath

I hope the two printing errors toward the end don’t upset you as much as they did me! … appalled that after several proofreadings I was guilty of letting them get through. [Plath in a letter to her mother, 26 Oct 1960 ]