News From the Rare Book World – Sylvia Plath's Typewriter Headed to Auction.

This is wild – Sylvia Plath's typewriter, which she used to write The Bell Jar, is heading to auction in London on March 21. It is expected to reach around £40,000-60,000 ($57,000-$85,000). Plath purchased the mint green Hermes in 1959 and it has stayed in the family ever since her death.

The typewriter is part of an auction lot of Plath's and her husband, fellow poet Ted Hughs' personal effects. Also included are the following gems (quoted from the article below):

-Sylvia Plath’s own copy of The Bell Jar, her only novel, published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas in January 1963, two months before her death. It is inscribed and dated "Sylvia Plath/23 Fitzroy Road/London NW1/Christmas 1962" and is estimated at £60,000-80,000. Plath and her two children, Frieda and Nicholas, had moved to London from the family home in Devon following her split from her husband, Ted Hughes.

-Plath’s copy of the "uncorrected proof" of The Bell Jar, with her manuscript corrections, inscribed "Sylvia Plath/Court Green/North Tawton/Devonshire" on the first page, estimated at £50,000-70,000. Plath has made approximately seventy textual corrections to this copy, including spellings and the addition of words. She signed the book with the address of her Devon home, where she worked on the proofs prior to her final break with Hughes.

-An important pen and ink portrait of Ted Hughes by Sylvia Plath, drawn shortly after their marriage in July 1956, probably during their honeymoon. In October 1956, Plath wrote to her mother about the sketches saying, "every drawing has in my mind and heart a beautiful association of our sitting together in the hot sun, Ted reading, writing poems, or just talking with me... the sketches are very important to me...". The portrait is estimated at £20,000-30,000.

-The dedication copy of Hughes’ first book of poetry, The Hawk in The Rain (1957) inscribed to Plath - "Written [To Sylvia, printed] and now presented to her with all my love." Plath was instrumental in the genesis of the book, and launching of Hughes' career. In a letter to her mother Plath wrote, "I am more happy than if it was my book published! I have worked so closely on these poems of Ted's and typed them so many countless times through revision after revision that I feel ecstatic about it all." It is estimated at £10,000-15,000.

-The first American edition of The Hawk in the Rain bearing Hughes inscription “because the book belongs to you just as surely as all my love does.” It is estimated at £8,000-12,000.

-A first edition of Ariel, the book of Plath’s poems edited by Hughes after his wife’s death and on which her reputation rests. Frieda Hughes has written that her father had, "honoured my mother's work and her memory by publishing Ariel... He, perhaps more than anyone, recognised and acknowledged her talent as extraordinary. Without Ariel, my mother's literary genius might have gone unremarked for ever.” It is estimated at £2,000-3,000.

Article here:
https://www.finebooksmagazine.com/press/2018/01/personal-effects-of-sylvia-plath-and-ted-hughes-at-bonhams-this-spring.phtml