Roosting Hawk.
(Northampton, MA: Grecourt Review, 1959). First separate edition, an offprint. An extraordinary association copy, inscribed on the inside front wrapper by Hughes to Sylvia Plath’s mother Aurelia Plath: "June 24, 1959, To Sylvia's mother from Ted with love." Originally published in The Grecourt Review, an undergraduate publication at Smith College, where Hughes's wife Sylvia Plath was teaching at the time, this poem was later collected in Lupercal (1960) as "Hawk Roosting". Hughes and Plath met each other in Cambridge on January 25, 1956. By May, Plath had informed her mother that the couple planned to marry in June of the following year. Aurelia Plath, however, came to England in June of 1956, and “almost immediately after Aurelia arrived, Plath and Hughes decided to marry – hastily, recklessly, even secretly, on June 16. . . . Aurelia Plath was the only family member at the ceremony.” Hughes and Plath moved to the United States in June 1957. Plath taught at Smith College, while Hughes taught at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Plath took advantage of her time in the US to resume visits with her psychiatrist, Ruth Beuscher, engaging in six months of psychotherapy that, among other things, brought to light her hostility toward her mother, feelings which she must have confided to her husband, and which may explain in part the peculiar form of Hughes’s inscription to his mother-in-law in this book, a construction that suggests both distance and disassociation. Hughes and Plath sailed back to England at the end of November, 1959. – Diane Middlebrook, Her Husband: Hughes and Plath – A Marriage. (N. Y.: Viking, 2003), pp. 26-27, 120-130. Sagar & Tabor C53. Offsetting from newspaper insert on inside front cover, otherwise a fine copy. 8vo, original printed wrappers.
Price: $7,500.00