TLS signed “Love, Sylvia,” three pages, 5.75 x 7.75, February 2, 1958. Letter to her parents-in-law Edith and William Hughes, with updates on her and Ted Hughes's work and health, and announcing their decision to move to Boston after fulfilling her contract with Smith College. In part: "You have no idea how we love getting your letters: every time they come we drop what we're doing and Ted sits down & reads them aloud to me. I like hearing about every little thing from the candy melting together in the candy jars at the little shop and what kind of weather is blowing over the moors—I loved our days up at the Beacon so much that I look on it as a real home & think of Ted's big desk waiting for us to write on it. So you can imagine how I like every word about it.
Ted has probably told you that he has a very good job for the next four months as Instructor of English at the University of Massachusetts in the next town, about 15 miles away. He came through his driving license test with flying colors and now drives my brother's solid little blue Plymouth car to work each day…He has one course of freshmen, two of sophomores, & one creative writing class of seniors, which is very special for a first-year college teacher to get…Ted just walked right in, with his book & good reviews, & they gave him this class, which sounds so interesting that I'd like one of that sort too: people who are really interested in writing are fun to teach.
It is very unusual for anyone without a Phd. (a doctor's degree) to get college-teaching jobs in America, but Ted's book is a strong recommendation. He could probably teach at either Amherst or Mount Holyoke: the first a boy's college, the latter a girl's college, much like Smith, if he wanted to next year…but Ted wants not to teach but to get some other kind of work (without homework or extra preparation) in Boston next year while I write for a change, and he'll have time to write too. Then, in the fall of 1959 we hope to come back to Europe for a year…I hope to have a book written by the end of next year in Boston…
My week and new semester begins tomorrow. I have been resting as much as possible, as the pneumonia left me really exhausted, not sick, but just very easily tired, so Ted has been taking very good care of me. I have taken on an extra little job in addition to my regular teaching which is going to an advanced course in American literature which is taught by a world-famous critic, and helping him correct most of his exams throughout the semester: I'll have to read all the books by Hawthorne, Melville and Henry James, but they are good, so I should enjoy it and a few hundred extra dollars will be very welcome. I've just finished correcting my own 70 blue-booklets of midyear exams & am resting my eyes on the scenery outside our window: red tile rooftops and two big gray squirrels chasing each other from branch to branch of the tall bare elm trees…
Ted has written two good short stories which we've sent out to a magazine: he can be a very good prose writer, too, I am sure of it, so I am suggesting subjects for him to write on about his own background in the moors which will be of great interest to the Americans and hope someday he may collect a book of Yorkshire tales…
Has Ted told you about the enormous snow sculptures made at the Winter Carnival at his University? He drove me over to see them yesterday and some were very impressive, several times taller than a man: one showed a drunkard leaning against a lamppost and looking at a huge pink elephant made out of snow (I have no idea how they colored it all) which reached up to the 2nd story of the building. Another showed two giants carving out a lacy snowflake, again, twice as high as human beings. There was a great prostrate dragon of snow with St. George standing by it, and a coach with six horses and Cinderella stepping out of it: very impressive: I wish you could have seen it."
In very good to fine condition, with light creasing. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, addressed in Plath's own hand.
Published in The Letters of Sylvia Plath (Vol. II), p. 207-209.
This warm, expansive letter—written at a pivotal juncture in Plath and Hughes’s early married life—offers a rare, intimate window into their domestic routines, creative ambitions, and professional uncertainties in 1958. Rich with evocative detail, it captures Plath’s affectionate bond with her in-laws, her pride in Hughes’s rising reputation, and her own determination to carve out time for serious writing despite recent illness and a demanding teaching load. The couple’s announcement of their impending move to Boston marks a crucial moment in Plath’s development, foreshadowing the fertile creative period that would soon follow.
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