The Silent Woman

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes

Nonfiction, Reference & Language, Language Arts, Writing & Publishing, Authorship, Biography & Memoir, Literary
Cover of the book The Silent Woman by Janet Malcolm, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Janet Malcolm ISBN: 9780307830616
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Publication: January 16, 2013
Imprint: Vintage Language: English
Author: Janet Malcolm
ISBN: 9780307830616
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication: January 16, 2013
Imprint: Vintage
Language: English

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. 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.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

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. 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.

More books from Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Cover of the book Outer Dark by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book Old School by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book The Juice by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book The Hearts of Men by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book Robopocalypse by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book Yearning for the Land by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book Always Looking by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book Take One Candle Light a Room by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book Mr g by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book The River of Consciousness by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book A Federal Offense by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book An Empire Wilderness by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book The Selected Essays of Gore Vidal by Janet Malcolm
Cover of the book Family Tree by Janet Malcolm
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy