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Ted Hughes is one of the greatest English poets of this century, yet his life was dogged by tragedy and controversy. His marriage to the American poet Sylvia Plath marked his whole life and he never entirely recovered from her suicide in 1963, though he chose to remain silent on the subject for more than 30 years. Many people, including his friend Al Alvarez, have held Hughes¿s adultery responsible for Plath¿s death. Elaine Feinstein first met Hughes in 1969, and she was a good friend of his and his sister Olwen¿s, both of whom guarded the Plath estate. She knows many of the European and America poets who so influenced Hughes - Seamus Heaney, Thom Gunn, Miroslav Holub, and knows the world in which both he and Plath moved.
Report
"Elaine Feinstein is completely at home with Hughes's work as well as his story. She vividly recreates the atmosphere of London literary life in the fifties and Sixties." Daily Mail
"A serous attempt to set out this complex poet's life and to understand the poetic task he set himself. A fine poet herself (and a friend of Hughes; they first met in 1969) Feinstein's readings of his work are sensitive and never over-psychologise ... This is an admirable book, fond but fair; hard to believe it could be bettered any time soon." The Times
