PLATH, Sylvia (her copy).

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Great Modern Short Stories. Sylvia Plath's copy, signed on her ex-libris bookplate, which partially covers her brother Warren's ownership signature. An earlier gift inscription from their mother Aurelia on the half-title reads: "To Warren from mother, Christmas 1948". Neat ink underlinings to two stories indicate that Sylvia or Warren read at least Faulkner's "Turn About" and Steinbeck's "Red Pony".At the time of Aurelia's inscription, she shared a bedroom with her daughter in their Wellesley home, moving into Warren's room when he left for Exeter the following year. Sylvia was 16 and already writing of that festive season, "A light, powdery snow has covered the earth... Carols of Christmas pour forth into the cold night air, and the frosty little stars themselves seem to twinkle with delight" (20 December 1948). Sylvia's younger brother and only sibling Warren (1935-2021) was also a precocious reader, and as children they competed for their father Otto's approval with recitals of poetry and stories.Outside of the home, Sylvia was further encouraged to read the modern classics by her teacher Wilbury Crockett from 1947 to 1950. Called the "Crocketeers", Sylvia and her classmates "acquired what their teacher called a 'life library', because he suggested that they buy the books they read, some forty each year" (Wagner-Martin, p. 43). She was also contributing her own short stories and poems to the school paper, the Christian Science Monitor, and Seventeen. After moving to New Yo

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