A Little Maid of Vermont.

CURTIS, Alice Turner [Sylvia Plath].

$12,500.00

Item Number: 134822

Philadelphia: The Penn Publishing Company, 1927.

First edition of the author’s children’s classic; from the library of Sylvia Plath. Octavo, original cloth, illustrated by Grace Norcross. Presentation copy, inscribed by Sylvia Plath’s mother on the front free endpaper, “Feb. 10, 1941 To my sweetheart, Sylvia from Mommy” and with her father, Otto Plath’s, embossed library stamp. Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her mother, Aurelia Schober Plath, was a second-generation American of Austrian descent, and her father, Otto Plath (1885–1940), was from Grabow, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Germany and worked as a professor of biology at Boston University. Plath would have been 8 years old when her mother inscribed the current volume to her. Accompanied by a four page autograph letter of provenance by Cara Winthrop Cruickshank describing how she came in possession of the book. The Cruickshanks were neighbors and close friends of the Plaths. After Sylvia’s death, Aurelia gave Cara’s mother several items that had belonged to Sylvia, among them this volume. The statement also provides detailed  and entertaining information about the relationship between the two families, and some insight from Ms. Cruikshank about the relationship between Sylvia and her mother. In very good condition. Rare and desirable, offering an intimate glimpse into Plath’s formative years.

American poet, novelist, and short-story writer Sylvia Plath with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems (1960) and Ariel (1965), as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death by suicide in 1963.