Ariel: The Restored Edition (Modern Classics) - Softcover

Plath, Sylvia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0060732601 ISBN 13: 9780060732608

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005

Synopsis

"Made up of poems that are so original in their style and so startlingly accomplished in their confessional voice that they helped change the direction of contemporary poetry, Ariel is a masterpiece." -- New York Observer

Sylvia Plath's famous collection, as she intended it.

When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific life but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel. When her husband, Ted Hughes, first brought this collection to the public, it garnered worldwide acclaim, but it wasn't the draft Sylvia had wanted her readers to see. This facsimile edition restores, for the first time, Plath's original manuscript--including handwritten notes--and her own selection and arrangement of poems. This edition also includes in facsimile the complete working drafts of her poem "Ariel," which provide a rare glimpse into the creative process of a beloved writer. This publication introduces a truer version of Plath's works, and will alter her legacy forever.

About this title

About the Author

Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Massachusetts. Her books include the poetry collections The Colossus, Crossing the Water, Winter Trees, Ariel, and Collected Poems, which won the Pulitzer Prize. A complete and uncut facsimile edition of Ariel was published in 2004 with her original selection and arrangement of poems. She was married to the poet Ted Hughes, with whom she had a daughter, Frieda, and a son, Nicholas. She died in London in 1963.

From the Back Cover

Sylvia Plath's famous collection, as she intended it.

When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific life but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel. When her husband, Ted Hughes, first brought this collection to life, it garnered worldwide acclaim, though it wasn't the draft Sylvia had wanted her readers to see. This facsimile edition restores, for the first time, Plath's original manuscript -- including handwritten notes -- and her own selection and arrangement of poems. This edition also includes in facsimile the complete working drafts of her poem "Ariel," which provide a rare glimpse into the creative process of a beloved writer. This publication introduces a truer version of Plath's works, and will no doubt alter her legacy forever.

This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Ariel: The Restored Edition

A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and ArrangementBy Sylvia Plath

HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

Copyright © 2005 Sylvia Plath
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060732601

Morning Song

Love set you going like a fat gold watch.
The midwife slapped your footsoles, and your bald cry
Took its place among the elements.

Our voices echo, magnifying your arrival. New statue
In a drafty museum, your nakedness
Shadows our safety. We stand round blankly as walls.

I'm no more your mother
Than the cloud that distils a mirror to reflect its own slow
Effacement at the wind's hand.

All night your moth-breath
Flickers among the flat pink roses. I wake to listen:
A far sea moves in my ear.

One cry, and I stumble from bed, cow-heavy and floral
In my Victorian nightgown.
Your mouth opens clean as a cat's.The window square

Whitens and swallows its dull stars.And now you try
Your handful of notes;
The clear vowels rise like balloons.

Continues...

Excerpted from Ariel: The Restored Editionby Sylvia Plath Copyright © 2005 by Sylvia Plath. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060732601
• ISBN 13: 9780060732608
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256