Letters Home represents Sylvia Plath’s correspondence from her time at Smith College in the early 1950s. It continues through her meeting with, and subsequent marriage to, the poet Ted Hughes, up to her death in February 1963.

The letters are addressed mainly to her mother, with whom she had an extremely close and confiding relationship. These letters home form an invaluable part of Plath’s literary history. However, there are also some to her brother Warren and her benefactress Mrs Prouty.

Plath’s energy, enthusiasm, and her passionate tackling of life burst onto these pages. Consequently, they provide us with a vivid and intimate portrait of a woman who has come to be regarded as one of the greatest of twentieth-century poets. In addition to her capacity for domestic and writerly happiness, these letters also hint at Plath’s potential for deep despair. This despair reached its crisis when she holed up in a London flat for the terrible winter of 1963. Indeed, through these letters home, one can trace the trajectory of her emotional highs and lows. Finally, Letters Home remains a poignant reminder of her enduring legacy.