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And the story itself points the way toward understanding who Plath really was and might have been.
Everyone loves a treasure hunt.
HarperCollinss press release touted the story as a new find, unknown even to Plaths estate.
Cue Rebecca Baumann, a librarian at Indiana Universitys Lilly Library, which houses Plaths papers and ephemera.
This story wasnt lost, Baumann tweeted on January 7.
It is at @IULillyLibrary, where it is described in a detailed finding aid.
It wasnt stumbled upon.
Literally thousands of researchers have accessed this material, in our collections since the late 70s.
This story wasnt lost.
It is at @IULillyLibrary, where it is described in a detailed finding aid.
It wasnt stumbled upon.
Raymo went on to pursue a career in higher education.
Decades later, in the 1980s, she began to collect Plaths work while traveling in England.
[Pieces] were available and not expensive then, Raymo recalled to me over the phone.
Before I knew it, I had a collection.
The story reappeared for sale at Sothebys in 2014, but failed to sell.
Two years and another failed auction later, Raymo arranged to buy the manuscript directly.
Soon she realized that she had indeed purchased the revised and final version of an incredible short story.
Raymo approached UK publisher Faber and Faber with scans of the piece.
(They did not respond to my requests for comment.)
Critics said that Plath would have been horrified by such a curated glimpse into her life.
It almost goes without saying that Hughes was no impartial executor either.
In addition, he bore a subtle but distinct bias toward Plaths poetry over her prose.
But Rich outlived her first marriage, and Plath did not.
Responding to HarperCollinss focus on the storys female agency, Sehgal asks, But is agency the real point?
I deserve a couple hundred rejections, now.
Itll only make me work all the madder and harder.
As a teenager, I revered Plath for the anger that fueled her swift writing.
As a 40-year-old, Im heartened by the confidence that informed her determination.
Are there more pieces yet to be discovered?
Their focus may turn back to the creative works, says Steinberg.
Baumann, the Lilly librarian who had tweeted indignantly, looks forward to that.
