Hughes printed a third of Plath’s journals in 1982, omitting material about sex and her hated mother–and him. He said he destroyed one notebook from just before her suicide, to protect their children; another is missing. But what’s left has Plath in full voice: smart, funny, unsparing of herself and anybody else. And in the Hughes archive sits a still sealed footlocker, hiding God knows what. “I find it hard to believe he really destroyed those things,” says Fran McCullough, Plath’s American editor. We’ll know in 2025. For those who can’t let Ted and Sylvia go, it’s something to hang on for.
