The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
In an astonishing feat of literary detection, one of the most provocative critics of our time and the author of In the Freud Archives and The Purloined Clinic offers an elegantly reasoned meditation on the art of biography.

"Among the most intellectually provocative of authors . . . able to turn epiphanies of perception into explosions of insight."—David Lehman, Boston Globe


In The Silent Woman, Janet Malcolm examines the biographies of Sylvia Plath to create a book not about Plath’s life but about her afterlife: how her estranged husband, the poet Ted Hughes, as executor of her estate, tried to serve two masters—Plath’s art and his own need for privacy; and how it fell to his sister, Olwyn Hughes, as literary agent for the estate, to protect him by limiting access to Plath’s work.

Even as Malcolm brings her skepticism to bear on the claims of biography to present the truth about a life, a portrait of Sylvia Plath emerges that gives us a sense of “knowing” this tragic poet in a way we have never known her before. And she dispels forever the innocence with which most of us have approached the reading of any biography.
1103588405
The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
In an astonishing feat of literary detection, one of the most provocative critics of our time and the author of In the Freud Archives and The Purloined Clinic offers an elegantly reasoned meditation on the art of biography.

"Among the most intellectually provocative of authors . . . able to turn epiphanies of perception into explosions of insight."—David Lehman, Boston Globe


In The Silent Woman, Janet Malcolm examines the biographies of Sylvia Plath to create a book not about Plath’s life but about her afterlife: how her estranged husband, the poet Ted Hughes, as executor of her estate, tried to serve two masters—Plath’s art and his own need for privacy; and how it fell to his sister, Olwyn Hughes, as literary agent for the estate, to protect him by limiting access to Plath’s work.

Even as Malcolm brings her skepticism to bear on the claims of biography to present the truth about a life, a portrait of Sylvia Plath emerges that gives us a sense of “knowing” this tragic poet in a way we have never known her before. And she dispels forever the innocence with which most of us have approached the reading of any biography.
15.95 In Stock
The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

by Janet Malcolm
The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

by Janet Malcolm

Paperback(Reprint)

$15.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    In stock. Ships in 1-2 days.
  • PICK UP IN STORE

    Your local store may have stock of this item.

Related collections and offers


Overview

In an astonishing feat of literary detection, one of the most provocative critics of our time and the author of In the Freud Archives and The Purloined Clinic offers an elegantly reasoned meditation on the art of biography.

"Among the most intellectually provocative of authors . . . able to turn epiphanies of perception into explosions of insight."—David Lehman, Boston Globe


In The Silent Woman, Janet Malcolm examines the biographies of Sylvia Plath to create a book not about Plath’s life but about her afterlife: how her estranged husband, the poet Ted Hughes, as executor of her estate, tried to serve two masters—Plath’s art and his own need for privacy; and how it fell to his sister, Olwyn Hughes, as literary agent for the estate, to protect him by limiting access to Plath’s work.

Even as Malcolm brings her skepticism to bear on the claims of biography to present the truth about a life, a portrait of Sylvia Plath emerges that gives us a sense of “knowing” this tragic poet in a way we have never known her before. And she dispels forever the innocence with which most of us have approached the reading of any biography.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780679751403
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date: 03/28/1995
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 224
Product dimensions: 5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.52(d)
Lexile: 1560L (what's this?)

About the Author

Janet Malcolm's previous books are Diana and Nikon: Essays on Photography; Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession; In the Freud Archives; The Journalist and the Murderer; The Purloined Clinic: Selected Writings; The Silent Woman: Slyvia Plath and Ted Hughes; and The Crime of Sheila McGough. She lives in New York with her husband, Gardner Botsford.
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews