The Journals of Sylvia Plath was published by The Dial Press on 31 March 1982 in the United States only. The book was heavily edited by Ted Hughes and Fran McCollough.

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath was published by Faber in April 2000 and Anchor Books on 17 October 2000 to critical acclaim. Universally considered long overdue and brilliantly edited by Karen V Kukil, Plath's journals, in either format, have always been read through the eyes of controversy.

Sylvia Plath began writing in a journal at quite an early age. Her mother, Aurelia Plath, used to slip dated journals into Sylvia's stocking at Christmas. In 1945, however, Sylvia requested that she be given an undated journal because, "When the big big moments come, one page is not enough." (LH 31)

There have been many conflicting opinions regarding her private Journals. Some question if it was right to publish them (or to even consider publishing them). Others praise these pages because it gives explicit insight into her strong sexuality, her sharp tongue and her determination to get everything down on paper. Reviewer, and ex-boyfriend, Peter Davison in his 18 April 1982 Washington Post article "Sylvia Plath: Consumed by the Anxieties of Ambition" is not particularly fair. He says:

The journal keeper could hardly be more self-centered, mean-spirited, narrowly ambitious, envious...I think the Journals can hardly be counted among the important items in the Plath catalogue. Their biographical significance, given their vacuous self-absorption, consists mainly in the light they throw on Plath's suspect ambitions for herself. Their writing style inadvertently repeats some of the major metaphor chains in her poetry. But by any reasonable comparison with Plath's finished work, this is a depressing bore, scrapings of the last bits of dried flesh from the empty hide of the poet.

Hardly a fair criticism especially considering that Sylvia Plath posthumously won the Pulitzer Prize in poetry the same year for her Collected Poems (1981). Though her edited Journals were being worked on before the Pulitzer was announced, their publication was made more important because of the award.

When Sylvia was writing these pages in the 1950's men essentially ran poetry. Only a few notable women poets were publishing or had published by this time. Therefore, one cannot express any surprise when Plath is very highly critical of other women poets and writers. Plath also wrote about her day to day life. She wrote fleeting thoughts and sometimes carried on about subjects that were most important to her. When she was pregnant with her first child she says "Children might humanize me. But I must rely on them for nothing. Fable of children changing existence and character as absurd fable of marriage doing it. Here I am, the same old sourdough." Reviewer Nancy Milford in her 2 May 1982, New York Times review writes "Isn't this precisely why we read a writer's journals? Not as a key to the poetry, but to know about the life from which the poems sprang. Poetry is never simply autobiography; even if its heat and urgency is stoked by the dilemmas of ordinary life..."

It is clear that at the time of publication the literary world was divided. There is a universal agreement concerning the Journals and their coming to being and their editing.

Fran McCullough's Editor's Note tries to enlighten the reader of the abridged edition that cuts were made to follow a few rules: "to include what seemed to us the most important elements relating to her work, her inner life, and her vigilant struggle to find herself and her voice." (xi) But, to the basic concern of the book must of the 'ordinary commentary' fell by the wayside. In my opinion this the editing delayed Plath scholarship for 18 years. The full text was only accessible to visitors at the Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith College where the original Journals and other Plath manuscripts were held.

The honesty with which this book was presented caused much controversy as well. McCollough admits that because many of the people Plath knew and wrote about in her journal were still living the publishing of the journals became complicated. Much like Aurelia Plath's belief that the characters portrayed in The Bell Jar were written out of the 'basest ingratitude', the friends, peers and family that would read Plath's journals might have their feelings hurt. Also, names were changed and much of Plath's intimacy was edited out. At the end of her Note McCullough says "The book these journals make is an enormously moving document, and it seems best simply to let it speak for itself." But how can such a chopped up, unevenly presented book be left to speak for itself?

In his Foreword for Journals Ted Hughes hoped to "serve a useful purpose." (xi) The journals form part of an unofficial autobiography; meant for her eyes only. Would Plath have desired these pages and words to be published? Probably not but she was an avid reader of Virginia Wolff and was very familiar with their content. Sometimes her journals read as though they were written to be read by others. Hughes writes that Plath "strove to see herself honestly and fought her way through the unmaking and remaking of herself. And the Sylvia Plath we can divine here is the closest we can now get to the real person she was in her daily life" (xiii).

Writing of this magnitude and praise Hughes has set the casual reader of the Foreword up for a stab in the back. For two pages he praises the genius Plath discovered in herself and then rips it away in his ending paragraph. The journals existed in notebooks and loose leaf sheets of paper. For the period of Plath's mental breakdown in August 1953 through late 1955 there are no entries. There were more Journals than meet the eye though. Hughes concludes his essay with: "Two more notebooks survived the while...and continued to within three days of her death. The last of these contained entries for several months, and I destroyed it because I did not want her children to have to read it (in those days I regarded forgetfulness as an essential part of survival). The other disappeared."

Disappeared? Destroyed? There has never been a greater scandal in all of Plath's publishing history. (I lie. The substitution and rearranging of poems collected in Ariel for its 1965 publication in England and 1966 publication in America is just as cheeky. Bad Ted.) What could have been so awful that it was worth destroying and, however unintentional, losing? One can only speculate that the turbulent passages in 1958 and 1959, where the journals terminate, could have led to a better understanding in the last three years of Plath's development as a poet, novelist and short story writer. One also wonders if the critical self-examinations would continue in the last years. It is my guess A. Alvarez's touching words on Plath's suicide that the 'lost to literature is inestimable" is just as relevant the loss Plath's last journals.

The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

A selection of reviews of The Journals of Sylvia Plath
Axelrod, Steven Gould. "The Second Destruction of Sylvia Plath." American Poetry Review.
     March-April 1985: 17-18.

Barnet, Andrea. Saturday Review. May 1982: 62.

Bonner, Thomas, Jr. "Plath's Journals Link Author's Private Life to Her Fiction." Times-Picayune.
     June 13, 1982: 14.

Booklist. March 15, 1982: 922.

Cartoun, Emilie. "Modern Mythology: Anais Nin and Sylvia Plath." San Francisco Review of
     Books. January-February 1983: 30-1.

Chasin, Helen. "What Have You Done? What Have You Done?" Yale Review. Spring 1983: 426-
     39.

Choice. September 1982: 87.

Citrin, Neil K. West Coast Review of Books. September-October 1982: 61.

Clemons, Walter. "A Poet's Rage for Perfection." Newsweek. May 3, 1982.

Davison, Peter. "Sylvia Plath: Consumed by the Anxieties of Ambition." Washington Post Book
     World. April 18, 1982: 3, 11.

Duhamel, P. Albert. "Sylvia Plath: Always on Stage." Boston Herald American. May 9, 1982.

Education. Fall 1984: 106.

French, William. "Searing intensity charting the hazy outlines of a mental breakdown." The Globe
     & Mail. May 8, 1982.

Griffin, Susan. "The Public Rage and Private Hell of Sylvia Plath." San Francisco Chronicle.
     April 18, 1982: 8.

Huckaby, Mary Pjerrou. "Plath's About Ready for Benign Neglect." Los Angeles Times. May 30,
     1982: 6.

Jackson, Marni. "In Search of the shape within." MacLean's Magazine. May 17, 1982: 57.

Kissel, Howard. Women's Wear Daily. April 12, 1982: 10.

Levine, Miriam. "The Journals Of Sylvia Plath." American Book Review. May-June 1983.

Mack, John E. New England Journal of Medicine. January 13, 1983: 107-8.

Martone, John. World Literature Today. Spring 1983: 295.

Meade, Marion. Ms. June 1982: 76, 80.

Milford, Nancy. "From Gladness to Madness." The New York Times Book Review. May 2, 1982:
     1, 30-2.

Mudrick, Marvin. "Tales of Waste and Woe." Hudson Review. Autumn 1982: 460-70.

National Review. April 16, 1982: 434.

New York Times Book Review. August 4, 1982: 27.

Newenhuyse, Elizabeth Cody. Christian Century. May 26, 1982: 638.

Pettingell, Phoebe. "The Voices of Sylvia Plath." New Leader. May 17, 1982: 10-11.

Pollitt, Katha. "Poet in Training." Atlantic. May 1982: 102-5.

Salamone, Anthony. Best Sellers. July 1982: 144.

Saturday Review. June 1982: 93.

Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg. "Sylvia Plath: The Artist Possessed." Sun-Times. April 11, 1982: 22.

Schreiber, Le Anne. New York Times. April 21, 1982: C-21.

Spies, Lynne Davis. Magill's Literary Annual. 1983: 367-71.

Stephen, Kathy Field. "Plath journals offer new insight." The Christian Science Monitor.
     September 7, 1982: 17.

Stuewe, Paul. "Cloying Robots...Plathian Jottings...Twainian Tales." Quill and Quire. July
     1982: 69.

Tartt, Alison. Library Journal. April 15, 1982: 813.

Wagner, Linda W. "Sylvia Plath's Journals." Contemporary Literature. Winter 1983:
     521-3.

Wimsatt, Margaret. America. July 24-31, 1982: 58-9.

"X-Ray View of a Struggling Poet." Christian Science Monitor. September 2, 1983: 8.

Zerby, Chuck. "Poet at her worst in Journals." Daily Hampshire Gazette. April 28, 1982: 8.