Index

The page numbers in this index relate to the printed version of this book; they do not match the pages of your ebook. You can use your ebook reader’s search tool to find a specific word or passage.

Notes. Works by Ted Hughes (TH) and Sylvia Plath (SP) appear directly under title; works by others under author’s name. Titles of rank are generally the highest mentioned in the text

‘A’ poems (TH), 452–6

Abelman, Arthur, 348

Abraham Woursell Foundation of New York, 246

Abse, Danny, 302

Adam and the Sacred Nine (TH; poems), 324, 343

Adelaide Festival (1976), 359–63

Adorno, Theodor, 172

Aeschylus: Oresteia, 502, 527–8, 531–2

After Ovid: New Metamorphoses (TH and others; stories), 490, 528

Akhmadulina, Bella, 252

Alaska: Nick in, 383, 405, 415, 420, 493; TH travels to, 399, 405, 420–1, 449, 493–4

Albery Theatre, London, 532

‘Alchemy, An’ (TH; poem), 465

Alliston, Susan: TH’s affair and relations with, 203–6, 210–11, 214, 225–6, 241–2, 341, 365, 511, 524–5; and SP’s death, 211–12, 216, 524–5; death, 214, 370; TH confesses family troubles to, 217; TH reads SP’s poems to, 220; and TH’s relations with Assia, 221–2; quarrel with TH, 226; meets Gerald Hughes, 241; TH visits in University College Hospital, a279–81, 341; funeral, 281; in TH’s ‘Epilogue’ poems in Gaudete, 339–41; ‘Hill Behind Tunis’ (poem), 211; ‘St Martin’s Lane, London’ (poem), 203–4; ‘Samurai’ (poem), 205

Alvarez, Al: on SP’s poetry, 12, 136–7; reviews TH’s poetry, 136, 166–7, 251; and publication of The New Poetry, 179–80; TH borrows flat, 190; praises SP’s poetry, 201, 213, 216; relations with SP, 202, 314; and SP’s death, 211; at SP’s funeral, 213; publishes SP’s poems, 216; reviews Ariel, 239; reviews Crow, 291; and Assia, 315–16, 455; Robin Morgan accuses, 347–8; accuses TH of neglecting SP’s grave, 441; The Savage God: A Study of Suicide, 312–14, 316, 340, 346

Alvarez, Ursula, 314

‘America-bound jet, on its chalky thread’ (TH; poem), 392

Ames, Elizabeth, 304

Ames, Lois, 304; as Sylvia’s official biographer, 8, 353, 440

Amichai, Yehuda: TH invites to 1st Poetry International Festival, 252–3; Assia translates, 269–70; TH praises, 282, 416; friendship with TH, 301; leaves wife for American girl, 403; poetry of personal exposure, 429; TH corresponds with, 476; sees stage adaptation of The Iron Man, 490

Amis, Kingsley, 135

‘Ancient Heroes and the Bomber Pilot, The’ (TH; poem), 102

Anderson, Jane V. (‘Joan Gilling’): brings lawsuit against TH over Bell Jar, 2, 6–8, 11, 358, 430–1, 433–9, 446, 504; death, 441

Andreae, Johann Valentin: The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, 289, 332

Andrew, Prince, Duke of York, 488

Anne, Princess, 465

‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ (TH; poem), 429

‘Apprehensions’ (TH; poem), 519, 523

Aquinas, Thomas, 501

Arb, Siv, 184, 333

Ariel (SP; poems): likened to Wordsworth’s Prelude, 12; TH prepares for publication, 30; TH praises and promotes, 219, 234; publication and reception, 236–9, 244, 254; autobiographical element, 331–2, 355; reviews, 345, 347, 351; as feminist issue, 346; as anti-Daddy tirade, 446; myth in, 473; on hope, 535

Arlott, John, 230

Armitage, Simon, 336

Arpeno, Tony, 73

Art of Sylvia Plath, The (essay collection), 279, 351

Arvon Foundation, 325, 385, 476

Arvon International Poetry Competition, 385

Aspinall, John, 493

astrology: TH and Olwyn’s interest in, 2, 15, 27–8, 70, 100–1, 139, 162, 188, 328, 373, 511

Atlantic Monthly (magazine), 124–5

Auden, Wystan Hugh, 125, 127, 168–9, 180, 252–3

Audience: A Quarterly of Literature and the Arts, 145

‘August Evening’ (TH; poem), 408

Aurelio, Josephine C., 2

Australia: Gerald emigrates to, 57, 73, 80; TH visits with father, 359, 363

‘Autumn Nature Notes’ (TH; poem), 513

Avco Embassy Pictures Corporation, 2, 6, 10

‘Badlands, The’ (TH; poem), 149

Bagayogo, Malick, 312

Baker, Kenneth, 482

Baldwin, James, 362

Baldwin, Michael, 268, 543

Ballard, J.G., 368

Baltzell, Jane, 114

Bananas (magazine), 368, 370

Bangladesh, 375–8

Barber, Jill: TH meets in Australia, 361; TH’s affair with, 363–6, 369–70; invited to Edna O’Brien’s, 374; in New York, 484; letters from TH, 553

Bardo Thödol (TH; unfinished oratorio libretto), 155–6, 332

Bark, Anne Voss (ed.): West Country Fly Fishing, 415

Barker, Nicola, 293

Baskin, Leonard: on Faber and Faber as ‘Fagin and Fagin’, 46; TH meets in USA, 139, 438; prints and illustrates ‘Pike’, 145; proposes cover for Meet My Folks, 148; illustrations for Crow, 283, 288–9, 294–5; illustrates Cave Birds, 323; illustrates Season Songs, 326; illustrates Orts, 341; moves to Devon, 373; illustrates Moon-Whales, 387; TH entertains, 401; illustrates A Primer for Birds, 413; illustrates Under the North Star, 413; Complete Prints published, 415; engravings for Capriccio, 450, 497; TH’s essay on, 491; and TH’s collection of SP poems, 502; illustrates Howls and Whispers, 509; sends collection of skulls to TH, 527; and TH’s complicated life, 528

Baskin, Lisa, 438

Baskin, Lucretia, 430

Bate, Gillian, 466–7

Bateson, Frederick, 492

‘Bawdry Embraced’ (TH; poem), 93–4, 135

‘Bayonet Charge’ (TH; poem), 102

‘Be a Dry-Fly Purist’ (TH; poem), 42

Beacon Press (publishing house), 3

Beacon, The (house), Hebden Bridge, Yorkshire, 3–4, 32, 272

‘Beacon, The’ (TH; poem), 4, 143, 393

‘Bear, The’ (TH; poem), 422

Becker, Gerry, 209, 210, 213

Becker, Jill, 210, 213–14

Bedales (school), 324

‘Bee God, The’ (TH; poem), 566

‘Bees’ (TH; poem), 414

Beethoven, Ludwig van, 269, 516–17, 522

Bell Jar, The (SP): in Boston libel case, 7–10, 18, 431–9, 545, 550; autobiographical element, 10, 197, 305, 351, 436, 550; as film, 10, 436; TH gives copy to Elizabeth Compton, 221; publication and reception, 234, 351, 444–5; US edition royalties, 287–8, 329; reissued in Britain, 303; US publication and sales, 303–5, 350; writing, 304, 443–4; doubles in, 356–7, 435; lesbian episode in, 356–8; posthumous tax demands on royalties, 381, 413; case settled, 438, 441; TH sees trial in Shakespearean terms, 442–4

Bergman, Ingmar, 303, 333

Bernard, Kenneth, 386

Berryman, John, 179–80, 253

Betjeman, Sir John, 180, 324–5, 417–18, 419

Beuscher, Dr Ruth, 144

‘Beutscher’ (TH; poem), 436

Billyeald, Major and Bertha, 183–4

Birthday Letters (TH): and Boston Deposition, 11; publication, 15, 457, 504, 506–8, 526, 533; on TH-SP marriage, 20–1, 197, 429; qualities, 50; influenced by Graves’s White Goddess, 67; on SP, 101; on TH-SP wedding, 116; on life in Boston, 143–4; on Assia, 186; Hardyesque quality, 255; autobiographical candour, 339; title, 354; sales, 506, 526; origins and gestation, 510–11, 515–19, 522–6, 531; wins Forward Prize, 538; posthumous value, 547

‘Birthday Masque, A’ (TH; poem), 487

Bishop, Elizabeth, 156

‘Black Coat’ (TH; poem), 158, 521–2

‘Black Coat: Opus 131’ (TH; unpublished poem), 109, 112, 314, 325, 515–19, 522, 562–3

Blackman, Charles, 213

Blake, William, 76, 390

Bloodaxe (publishers), 536

Bloom, Harold (‘Hal’), 85

Boddy, Michael, 84–5, 108

Böhme, Jacob, 279

Bonnefoy, Yves, 252–3

Boston, Mass., Willow Street, 3, 143–4, 157, 165

Bottomley, Hilda (née Farrar; TH’s aunt): in Mytholmroyd, 34; marriage and separation, 35; gives animal book to TH as boy, 38; visits Mexborough, 48; visits TH and SP in Devon, 184; takes care of TH’s children during SP’s funeral, 219; TH visits with children, 222; and TH’s proposed move to Heptonstall with Assia, 223; helps TH at Court Green, 224; and father’s death, 360; Wolfwatching dedicated to, 428; attacks Assia, 453; letter to TH on award of OM, 538

Bottomley, Victor (Hilda’s husband), 35, 48

Bowes-Lyon, Fergus, 487

Boyanowsky, Ehor, 421–4; Savage Gods, Silver Ghosts, 558

Boyd, Michael, 500

Bradbury, Malcolm, 502

Bradley, A.C., 460

Bragg, Melvyn, 386, 529

Braithwaite, Edward Kamau, 230

Branson, Richard, 485

Brendel, Alfred, 543

Breughel, Pieter, 473

‘Bridestones’ (TH; poem), 395

Britain: A World by Itself (collective work), 415

British Book News, 227

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC): TH’s freelance work for, 65, 169, 195, 201, 233, 244; TH auditions at, 123–4; TH and SP record for, 188

British Columbia, 420, 422, 424, 494

British Gas: sponsors River, 407–8

British Library: TH archive, 555, 557

Broadsheet (student magazine), 99

Brodsky, Joseph, 243, 441

Brontë family, 390

Brontë, Bramwell, 394

Brontë, Emily: TH asked to edit poems, 272, 458; omitted from By Heart anthology, 501; Wuthering Heights, 123, 536

Brook, Peter: TH collaborates with, 256–61, 277, 306–11, 318; and Conference of the Birds, 318, 323; TH on, 402; TH values views on Shakespeare, 461, 464

Brooke, Rupert, 69

Brown, Marty: letters from SP, 125–6, 200

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 504

Browning, Robert, 504

Bryden, Ronald, 260

‘Bull Moses, The’ (TH; poem), 145, 164

‘Bullfrog’ (TH; poem), 164

‘Burning Letters’ (SP; poem), 190

Bushell-Mingo, Josette, 490

Butscher, Edward: Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness, 353, 355, 431; (ed.) Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work, 355–6, 437

Buzan, Tony, 477

By Heart: 101 Poems to Remember (ed. TH), 501

Caikin, Celia (Assia’s sister), 275–6, 286

Calder valley and river, 25, 388–91, 406

‘Calm, The’ (TH; radio play), 175

Cambridge University: TH attends (Pembroke College), 55, 61, 65, 67, 69–80; Archery Club, 72–3; TH changes studies to Archaeology and Anthropology, 75–8; social composition, 78; TH returns to, 84–5, 106

Camps, Tony, 80

Cape Cod, 129, 142

Capote, Truman, 145

Capriccio (TH; cycle of poems), 188, 340, 450–2, 496–7, 521

‘Capriccios’ (TH; poem), 190

‘Capturing Animals’ (TH; broadcast talk), 37, 46, 59

Carey, John, 469–70, 528, 538, 554

Carne-Ross, Donald, 123–4

Carson, Rachel: Silent Spring, 297

Carter, Angela, 374

‘Cast, The’ (TH; poem), 523

‘Casualty, The’ (TH; poem), 102

Cat and the Cuckoo, The (TH; children’s poems), 430

Causley, Charles, 385–6, 417

Cave Birds (TH; poems), 323, 327, 332, 395–6

Celan, Paul: ‘Death Fugue’, 451

Chalcot Square, London, 160, 170, 186

Chamberlain, Neville, 48

Charles, Prince of Wales, 268, 476, 483–4, 486, 509, 543, 546

Chatto and Windus (publishers), 367, 387

Cheever, John, 148, 154

Chequer (magazine), 79, 96, 102, 105

‘Chlorophyll’ (TH; poem), 450

Choice of Emily Dickinson’s Verse, A (ed. TH), 458

Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse, A (ed. TH), 459, 461

Chou Wen-chung, 155, 332

Christian Science Monitor, 293, 489

‘Churn-Milk Joan’ (TH; poem), 395

City of Florence Prize for poetry: awarded to TH, 282

Clearing the Decks (TH; collection), 329

Cleese John, 364

‘Cleopatra to the Asp’ (TH; poem), 458

Cleveland Street, Fitzrovia, 203, 209, 510

‘Climbing into Heptonstall’ (TH; poem), 537

Cohen, Marvin, 384

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 12, 64, 261, 491–2, 507; ‘Christabel’, 491; ‘Frost at Midnight’, 199, 217; ‘Kubla Khan’, 303; ‘The Nightingale: A Conversation Poem’, 217; ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner’, 460, 492

Coleridge Secondary Modern School for Boys, Cambridge, 126, 128

Collected Animal Poems (TH), 495

Collected Poems (SP; 1981), 354, 385

Collected Poems (TH; 2003), 548

Colossus, The (SP; poetry collection), 161, 169, 174, 234

Coming of the Kings, The (TH; plays), 322

Commedia (SP; verse), 445

Complete Prints of Leonard Baskin, 415

Compton, David, 222

Compton, Elizabeth (later Sigmund), 184, 221–2, 245, 296, 356, 548

Conference of the Birds, The (medieval Persian tale), 318, 323, 376

Connaught Hotel, London, 536–7

Conrad, Peter, 334

‘Contusion’ (SP; poem), 237

‘Conversation among the Ruins’ (SP; poem), 112

Cook, Ian, 426, 546

Cooke, Barrie, 193, 246, 276, 399, 405

Coole Park, Ireland, 192

Cope, Wendy, 14

Corke, Hilary, 488

Cornish, Ted, 385, 402, 415

Cosmopolitan (magazine), 305

Countryside Commission: and River, 410

Courier (Mytholmroyd newspaper), 294

‘Court Cards’ (TH; poem), 458

Court Green (house), North Tawton, Devon: TH’s home and life in, 11, 51, 155, 181–5, 200, 224–5, 231, 243–4, 286; TH and SP acquire and occupy, 175–8; visitors, 184, 187; TH drives to and from in day, 207–8; Comptons look after, 222; TH retains, 287; burgled and SP manuscripts stolen, 311; renovations, 317, 470; Carol’s life at, 424

Cox, C.B. (Brian), 71, 251

‘Crag Jack’s Apostasy’ (TH; poem), 29

Craig, Daniel, 548

Craig, W.J., 54

Crane, Hart, 147

‘Cries and Whispers’ (TH; poem), 523

Crimsworth Dene, near Hebden Bridge, 41–4

Critics on Sunday (radio programme), 209

Crookhill estate, near Conisborough (Yorkshire), 57–60

Crosbie-Hill, Janet, 161–2

‘Crossing the Water’ (SP; poem), 410, 501

Crossing the Water (SP; poems), 346

Crossley, Donald, 40–1

Crow (TH; poems): Larkin parodies, 14; and Baskin illustrations, 188–9, 294–5; writing, 246, 249, 252, 255, 288–9, 511; TH reads to Irene Worth, 257; language, 272; and Vasko Popa, 282; dedicated to memory of Assia and Shura, 286, 331, 343; qualities, 286, 327; publication, 288, 459; exposition and meaning, 289–91, 321, 376, 459; and Trickster, 289–90; reception, 291–4; limited editions, 294–5; sales, 294; Sylvia in, 296, 349; TH reads in New York, 302; and Pilinszky poems, 321–2; as epic, 332; and TH’s inner torment, 345; TH expounds in Australia, 362–3; and Shakespeare, 459; TH gives public readings, 459; dramatised by Michael Boyd, 500

‘Crow Hill’ (TH; poem), 164

‘Crow Wakes’ (TH), 294

‘Crown Point Pensioners’ (TH; poem), 392

crows: wing-beat, 285

‘Crow’s Song about England’ (TH; poem), 390

‘Crow’s Song about Prospero and Sycorax’ (TH; poem), 461

Cruttwell, Patrick, 464

Crystal Gazer (SP; poetry collection), 347

Csokits, János, 219, 249–50, 322, 430, 493, 502, 547

Cuba: TH’s fishing trip in, 509

Cummings, E.E., 147

‘Daddy’ (SP; poem): and SP’s view of father and TH, 8, 189, 201, 443, 447; TH reads and publishes, 216, 236–7; power and bitterness, 239–40, 296, 350, 438; Time magazine reprints, 240; Aurelia and, 254; and TH’s Orts, 342; feminists and, 346; and TH’s ‘Snow’, 451

Daily Telegraph, 167, 228

Dalton, Timothy, 364

Dancer to God, A (TH; essay), 92

Daniel, Glyn, 77

Dante Alighieri, 445

Davenant, William, 545

David and Charles (publishers), 407

Davidow, Ann, 198

Davids, Roy, 13, 385, 400

Davie, Donald, 135, 251

Davison, Peter, 103–4, 124, 139, 145–6

Dawe, Des (Frieda’s first husband), 382, 402

‘Day he died, The’ (TH; poem), 542

Day Lewis, Cecil, (ed.) The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen, 236

‘Day of Success’ (SP; story), 369

‘Deadfall, The’ (TH; story), 42

‘Delivering Frieda’ (TH; poem), 512, 514–15

delta (magazine), 79, 88

Dexter, Ted, 72

Dhaka, Bangladesh, 375–7

Diana, Princess of Wales, 488

‘Dick Straightup’ (TH; poem), 164

Dickinson, Emily, 201, 219; TH edits, 242, 458

‘Difference, The’ (TH; poem), 523

Difficulties of a Bridegroom (TH; radio play), 201, 216, 310, 332

Difficulties of a Bridegroom (TH; short stories), 495

‘Do not pick up the telephone’ (TH; poem), 188–9

‘Dogs: A Scherzo’ (TH; radio play), 233

Don and Dearne (school magazine), 56

Doolan, Moira, 37, 173, 210

Doonreaghan, Cashel, Ireland, 244–5

Dostoevsky, Fedor, 356

Douglas, Keith, 235–6; ‘The Sea Bird’ (poem), 236

Douglas-Home, Sir Alec, 230

‘Dove, A’ (TH; poem), 189

Downer, Jim, 111

‘Dream of Horses, A’ (TH; poem), 180–1

‘Dream of the Lion’ (TH; poem), 486

Dreamfighter, The (TH; collection of ‘Creation Tales’), 495

‘Dreams Like Deer’ (TH; poem), 377

Dublin, 271

Duffy, Carol Ann, 497

Duncan, Anne (née Farrar), 400

Dunn, Douglas, 515

Dunstan, Don, 361

Dusseldorp, Kristina, 374, 428–9

‘Dust As We Are’ (TH; poem), 428

Dyment, Clifford, 191

Dyson, Tony, 71

‘Early August 1959’ (TH; poem), 153

Earth Dances (TH; poems), 495

Earth-Moon (TH; poems), 387

‘Earth-Numb’ (TH; poems), 343, 372

Earth-Owl and Other Moon-People, The (TH; children’s poems), 201, 227, 387

‘Earthenware Head, The’ (TH; poem), 339

Eat Crow (TH), 294, 296, 332

Eberhart, Richard, 148

‘Edge’ (SP; poem), 235, 237, 514

Edinburgh Festival: TH reads poetry at, 244

Eichmann, Adolf, 172

‘18 Rugby Street’ (TH; poem), 108–9, 215, 523–5

Eliade, Mircea: Shamanism, 234, 250, 262

Eliot, T.S.: professional work, 16; religious faith, 31; TH reads at school, 53; TH idealizes, 92–3; likes TH’s The Hawk in the Rain, 127, 132; congratulates TH on poetry, 145–6; at Faber party, 163; entertains TH and SP, 168–9; poetic style, 179–80; reads Lupercal, 201; speaking voice, 231; death, 252; on impersonality of great art, 331; verse drama, 332; myths and archetypes, 339; Sweeney character, 409; and Fisher King, 412; influence on TH, 464; on English culture, 501; ‘The Death of Saint Narcissus’, 93; Four Quartets, 93; ‘Journey of the Magi’, 322; ‘Little Gidding’, 31; The Waste Land, 89, 93, 239, 293, 486

Eliot, Valerie, 168, 485

Elizabeth I, Queen, 324–5, 462, 488, 538, 541

Elizabeth, Queen Mother: TH fishes with, 4, 483; TH publishes poems for, 420, 486–7; favours Lupercal, 472; TH inscribes book for, 485; stays in London in war, 488; and TH’s recovering from cancer, 502; TH stays near, 516–17; attends TH’s memorial service, 543

Elkington, John: The Poisoned Womb, 426

Ellis, A.E.: The Rack, 352

‘Elm’ (SP; poem), 184

Eltisley Avenue, Newnham village, near Cambridge, 124, 126

‘Emily Brontë’ (TH; poem), 394, 397

Emory University, Atlanta, 500, 555

Empty Space, The (Peter Brook manifesto), 307

Encounter (magazine), 236–7, 296

England: TH on, 229–30

Enright, D.J., 367

Enzensberger, Hans, 252

‘Epiphany’ (TH; poem), 13

‘Error’ (TH; poem), 199–200

Essex, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of, 472

Eugene Saxton Grant: awarded to SP, 178

Euripides: Alcestis, 504, 527, 532–6; The Bacchae, 333

Evans, Matthew, 504–5

Evening Standard, 488

‘Event’ (earlier ‘Quarrel’; SP; poem), 187

‘Evolution of “Sheep in Fog”, The’ (TH; essay), 491

Exeter University: awards honorary doctorate to TH, 415

Faas, Ekbert, 337–8

Faber Book of Fishing (unfinished), 423

Faber Book of Verse for Younger People (ed. TH and Heaney), 386–7

Faber and Faber (publishers): publish The Hawk in the Rain, 127; accept TH’s Lupercal, 153, 167, 201; entertaining, 168; joint publication of TH and Thom Gunn, 179; Susan Alliston works at, 203–4; contract with TH, 235; publish Ariel, 236; await third work from TH, 246; publish Wodwo, 248, 252; publish Crow, 294; publish Season Songs, 326; publish Gaudete, 333–4; publish Moortown, 343; publish The Art of Sylvia Plath, 345; publish Remains of Elmet, 391; publish TH’s Tree Books, 395; agree to publish Devon rivers book, 407; publish Wolfwatching, 428; publish Emily Dickinson selection, 458; delay TH’s Shakespeare anthology, 461; and Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being, 467; publish Sacred Earth Dramas, 485; publish The Mermaid’s Purse, 489; announce TH’s death, 541; publish TH’s Collected Poems (2003), 548; see also Monteith, Charles

Fainlight, Harry, 372

Fainlight, Ruth: marriage to Alan Sillitoe, 174; visits TH and SP in Devon, 184, 187, 247; on TH and Assia’s beauty, 253; TH stays with, 299; and brother Harry, 372; in Finland, 403; sees stage version of The Iron Man, 490; Poems (with TH and Sillitoe), 295

Fairfax, John, 325

‘Falcon Yard’ (SP; incomplete novel), 111, 133, 151

‘Fallgrief’s Girlfriends’ (TH; poem), 92

‘Famous Poet’ (TH; poem), 21, 168

Farrar family, 30–2

Farrar, Albert (TH’s uncle), 27, 34–5, 39, 45; suicide, 28, 55–6, 217, 428, 450, 511

Farrar, Alice (Walter’s wife), 34

Farrar, Annie (TH’s maternal grandmother), 32, 34, 40

Farrar, Barbara (TH’s cousin), 35, 400

Farrar, David (Tom’s son), 400

Farrar, Edwin (TH’s cousin), 35

Farrar, Glennys (TH’s cousin), 55

Farrar, Hilda (TH’s aunt) see Bottomley, Hilda

Farrar, Ivy (née Greenwood; Tom’s wife), 34

Farrar, James (TH’s son), 35

Farrar, Minnie (Albert’s wife), 29, 34

Farrar, Miriam (TH’s aunt), 32

Farrar, Mitchell (TH’s grandfather), 32

Farrar, Nicholas (1592–1637), 30, 337

Farrar, Rita (David’s wife), 400

Farrar, Thomas (TH’s uncle), 32–4, 394

Farrar, Walter (TH’s uncle), 27, 32, 34, 83, 122, 187, 237, 391, 394, 428; death, 359–60, 397

‘February 17th’ (TH; diary poem), 319, 327

‘February’ (TH; poem), 164

Feinstein, Arnold, 400

Feinstein, Elaine: biography of TH, 19; and Emma Tennant, 369; Baskin questions, 373; Olwyn’s friendship with, 400

feminism: rise of, 345–6

Fenton, James, 504

Ferguson, Sarah (Duchess of York), 488

Feuer, Donya, 465–6

‘Fever 103 degrees’ (SP; poem), 202, 239

Ffangs the Vampire Bat and the Kiss of Truth (TH; children’s story), 430

‘59th Bear, The’ (TH; poem), 152

‘Fifty-Ninth Bear, The’ (SP; story), 151–2

Findlay, Jean, 63, 331, 337

‘First, Mills’ (TH; poem), 396

‘First Things First’ (TH; poem), 425

‘First time I brought a bottle of wine, The’ (TH; poem), 526

‘First Time, The’ (TH; poem), 513

Fisher, John Edward: TH dedicates Poetry in the Making to, 37; teaches and inspires TH, 43, 53–5, 72, 76; recommends TH for admission to Cambridge, 61; gives Graves’s White Goddess to TH, 65; visits TH and SP in Mexborough, 128; TH sends Ariel to, 238; TH explains Wodwo to, 249; and Brook’s invitation to TH to collaborate in Paris, 260–1; illness and death, 400–2

Fisher, Nancy, 128

Fitzroy Road, London, 202–3, 206, 208, 210, 220–1, 442, 444–5

‘Five Autumn Songs for Children’s Voices’ (TH), 326

‘Flame’ (TH; poem), 450

Fletcher, John, 54, 458

Flowers and Insects (TH; poetry), 430, 505

Folliet, Mary: ‘Ten Years Cold’ (poem), 353

‘Football at Slack’ (TH; poem), 396

‘For the Duration’ (TH; poem), 428–9

‘For Olwyn Each Evening’ (TH; unpublished poem), 48

Fortess Road, Kentish Town, London, 371

Forward Poetry Prize, 529, 538

‘Four Corners of a Windy House’ (SP; story), 133

Fowles, John: The Magus, 333

Frazer, Sir James: The Golden Bough, 350

Freedom: A Commemorative Anthology to Celebrate the 125th Birthday of the British Red Cross, 518

Freud, Sigmund, 93

Friedan, Betty: The Feminine Mystique, 346

Frost, Robert, 3, 145

Full House, A (TH; verse sequence), 242

‘Full Moon and Little Frieda’ (earlier ‘Frieda’s Early Morning’; TH; poem), 216, 363

Gammage, Nick, 459–60, 477

García Lorca, Federico: Blood Wedding, 499–500

Garland, Patrick, 252

Gaudete (TH; poem): writing, 19, 228, 333–66, 363; reception, 334–5; themes, 335–6, 338; ‘Epilogue’ poems, 337–9, 341–2; origins, 337–8; elegiac quality, 339, 343, 534; in Selected Poems, 414

Gawain and the Green Knight see Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

Gehenna Press, 145, 160, 186, 288, 497, 550; see also Baskin, Leonard

George VI, King: death, 72

Germany: TH offered residency in, 242–3; TH visits with Assia, 269

Gerson, Mark, 169

Getty, Paul, 476

Gielgud, Sir John, 257–8, 483

Gifford, Terry, 477

Gillespie, Iris, 481

Ginsberg, Allen, 252–3

‘Go Fishing’ (TH; poem), 515, 542

Godwin, Fay: photographs illustrate Remains of Elmet, 388–9, 391–5, 406, 410, 428–9; photographs omitted from Three Books, 396

Gooder, Jean, 100

Goodman, Emily, 348

Gowrie, Alexander Patrick Greysteil Ruthven, 2nd Earl, 543

Grace, Carolyn, 2, 6, 8

Grand Street (magazine), 355, 515

Granta (magazine), 78–9

Grattidge, Liz, 80, 83–4, 86, 89, 94

Graves, Robert, 180, 252, 365, 382, 403; The White Goddess, 65–7, 77–8, 165, 234, 250, 290, 297, 331, 351, 457, 459–60, 473, 511

Gray, Tony, 110

Greenwood, Harry, 56

Greer, Germaine: The Female Eunuch, 345

Gregory, Augusta, Lady, 192

‘Griefs for Dead Soldiers’ (TH; poem), 102

Griffiths, Eric, 470–1

Grimshaw, Parson, 390

Grotowski, Jerzy, 311

‘Group, the’ (friends), 88

‘Grouse, The’ (TH; poem), 197, 526

Guardian (newspaper), 334, 441

Guggenheim Foundation, 146

Guinness company (brewers), 191

Guinness Poetry Award, 145

‘Gulkana, The’ (TH; poem), 420

Gunn, Thom: friendship with TH, 9, 94; at Cambridge, 78; joint publication with TH, 179; published in The New Poetry, 181; turns down Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, 476

Guppy, Shusha, 543

‘Gypsy, The’ (TH; poem), 215

Hailey, Arthur, 228–9

Hall, Donald, 244, 335

Hall, Peter, 78

‘Hanged Man and the Dragonfly, The’ (TH; essay), 491

‘Hardcastle Crag’ (TH; poem), 392, 396

Harding, Dr, 539

Hardy, Thomas, 255, 339, 504

Harper Brothers (Harper and Row; US publishers), 125, 127, 167, 352

Harper’s Magazine, 167

Harry, Prince, 484

Hart, Josephine: Damage, 481

Harvard University, TH reads poetry at, 139

‘Harvesting, The’ (TH; story), 56, 164

Hathaway, Anne, 468, 544

Hawk in the Rain, The (TH; collection): TH’s ‘Song’ included, 63; war poems, 102; submitted to and wins Harper Brothers’ competition, 125, 127; published and reviewed, 134–7; wins Somerset Maugham Award, 162; and Wodwo, 249–50; and the unconscious, 331; jaguar in, 449

‘Hawk in the Rain, The’ (TH; poem), 5, 137

‘Hawk Roosting’ (TH; poem), 165–6, 271, 273, 376

‘Hawk in the Storm, The’ (TH; poem), 124

Haworth: the Brontë parsonage, 90, 123, 273, 536

‘Haworth Parsonage’ (TH; poem), 394

Hawthornden Prize, 174

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 450

Hazlitt, William, 62, 491

‘Head, The’ (TH; story), 44, 371

Heaney, Marie, 271, 386

Heaney, Seamus: lecture on TH as poet, 13; profession, 16; on TH’s commitment to poetry, 20; on TH’s marriage failure, 198; meets Assia, 271; stays with TH, 299; on TH’s Gaudete, 334; on ‘The Earthenware Head’, 339; on TH in Ireland, 375; as judge for Arvon International Poetry Competition, 385–6; co-edits Faber Book of Verse for Young People, 387; poetic development, 416–17, 429; Harvard Professorship, 433, 438; letters from TH, 476; wins Nobel Prize for Literature, 476; and TH’s translation for Royal Shakespeare Company, 497; praises Birthday Letters, 507, 538; speaks at TH’s funeral and memorial service, 541–3; correspondence with TH, 555; Death of a Naturalist, 271; North, 14; ‘On a new work in the English tongue’ (tribute to Birthday Letters), 538; The School Bag (with TH; anthology), 483–4; Station Island, 416

Heath, Edward, 464

Hecht, Anthony, 139, 252

Hedden, Brenda: TH meets in Devon, 245; birth of daughters, 246, 253; relations with TH, 256, 267, 277, 280–1, 298–301, 378; in Assia’s will, 266; gifts from TH, 270; in Yorkshire, 281, 286; moves to Lancing, Sussex, 300; letters from TH, 553

Hedden, Judith, 253

Hedden, Trevor, 245, 266–7

Heinemann, William (publisher), 161, 234, 352, 4345

Heptonstall, Yorkshire, 222–3, 394, 519, 536; see also Lumb Bank

‘Heptonstall’ (TH; poem), 392

‘Heptonstall Cemetery’ (TH; poem), 394, 396

‘Her Husband’ (TH; poem), 19, 251

Herbert, George: The Temple, 30

Herbert, Zbigniew, 233, 252–3, 273, 279, 282, 361

Heseltine, Michael, 482

‘Hidden Orestes, The’ (TH; poem), 510, 523

Hill, Geoffrey, 191, 539

‘Hill of Leopards, A’ (TH; proposed title), 125

Hippolytus (mythological figure), 476

Hitler, Adolf: Williamson admires, 52

Hobsbaum, Philip, 79, 88–9, 97

Hodgart, M.J.C., 70

Hofmann, Michael, 490, 495, 528

Hogbin, Ian: Experiments in Civilization, 78

Hollis, Tasha, 24, 206, 211, 225–6, 281, 365

Holmes à Court, Francis (later 5th Baron Heytesbury), 74

Holmes, Richard: Coleridge: Darker Reflections, 557

Holt, Billy, 390

Holub, Miroslav, 233, 282

‘Honey Bee and the Thistle, The’ (TH; poem), 489

Hopkins, Gerard Manley, 53, 285

Horder, Dr John, 160, 212, 215, 524, 534

Hordern, Michael, 425

Horovitz, Frances, 415

Horovitz, Michael, 488

‘Horses, The’ (TH; poem), 137, 181

House of Aries, The (TH; radio play), 161, 333

‘House of Tauris, The’ (TH; lost play), 155

Housman, A.E., 363

‘How the Donkey Became’ (TH; children’s story), 120

‘How the Polar Bear Became’ (TH; children’s story), 489

How the Whale Became (TH; children’s stories), 227

‘Howling of Wolves, The’ (TH; poem), 226, 332

Howls and Whispers (TH), 509–10, 523, 562

Hughes family: TH and SP spend Christmas with, 126

Hughes, Ashley (Gerald’s son), 128, 272

Hughes, Brendon (Gerald’s son), 128, 272

Hughes, Carol (née Orchard): home in North Tawton, Devon, 11; cares for TH’s children, 254–6; TH’s attachment to, 267, 277, 286, 298–9; meets Gerald and family, 272; TH takes to Lumb Bank, 286; TH marries, 299, 422–3; in Israel with TH, 301; packs up TH’s papers at Lumb Bank, 305; TH praises, 306, 422; in Persia, 311; assists with farming, 319, 329; holiday in Italy with TH, 324; TH dedicates Season Songs to, 326, 366; Emma Tennant meets, 369; and TH’s infidelities, 371, 381; wishes to retain farm, 381; supports Farms for City Children, 417; meets Boyanowski, 423; relations with Frieda, 478; sister’s death from cancer, 483; The Dreamfighter dedicated to, 495; stays at Matthew Evans’ with TH, 504; at Buckingham Palace, 538; inheritance from TH, 546–7; prepares TH’s letters for publication, 553; in TH poem, 565

Hughes, Edith (née Farrar; TH’s mother), 12; home in Mexborough, 3, 47; buys bath, 26–7; on TH’s birth, 27; marriage and children, 30, 33–4; spiritual life, 31, 48; in Great War, 32–3; works for brothers, 34–5; walking and swimming, 39; stories and poems, 40; helps with newsagent’s shop, 48; buys books for TH, 52–3; and brother Albert’s death, 56; and Shirley’s mishap in kitchen, 90; photographed with SP, 122; at SP’s funeral, 213; health decline, 244, 246, 253, 272; death and funeral, 278, 281, 340, 459; TH dedicates poems to memory, 344; prevents husband’s infidelity, 381; Remains of Elmet dedicated to memory, 391, 394; in TH’s poems, 396

Hughes, Frieda Rebecca (TH-SP’s daughter): birth, 162–3; childhood, 171, 174, 558–60; pecked by crow, 182; and TH’s visit to SP in Fitzroy Road, 208; and mother’s suicide, 213, 219, 559–60; upbringing, 224–5; in TH poems, 227, 511–12, 514; TH dedicates books to, 228; schooling, 231, 244, 301, 324, 328; Ariel dedicated to (with Nicholas), 237; SP’s poem for, 238; in Ireland with father, 245–6; on grandmother Aurelia, 254; begs Assia to stay, 255; childhood poems, 256; TH reads The Iron Man to, 263; in Assia’s will, 266; visits to grandmother Aurelia in USA, 269, 281, 299; visits the Beacon, 272; and grandmother Edith’s death, 278; TH plans to take north to live, 281; urges TH to marry Carol, 299; trip to Scotland and Lake District, 305; in Persia, 311; precocity, 317; letters from TH, 328; wild youth and marriage to Des Dawe, 382, 402; Moon-Whales dedicated to, 387; appearance and activities, 415–16; divorce from Des and relations with insurance salesman, 415; painting and sculpture, 449; TH endorses to US publisher, 477; on bees, 478; moves to Australia, 478, 560; third marriage (to Lukácz), 478; TH’s wedding poem to, 478–80; The Iron Woman dedicated to, 489; returns to England on learning of TH’s cancer, 502; accepts Whitbread Prize for Birthday Letters on TH’s behalf, 506; provides painting for jacket of Birthday Letters, 507–8; poem on publication of Birthday Letters, 508; questions TH about mother, 513; first volume of poetry published, 537; and TH’s death, 541; unmentioned in TH’s will, 546; shares TH’s posthumous copyright, 547; poems and paintings of life, 558; and Nick’s death, 562; ‘Conversation with Death’ (poem), 541; Forty-Five (autobiographical project), 558–61; Man Thinking (painting), 558; Wooroloo (poetry), 560; Waldorf and the Sleeping Granny, 478

Hughes, Gerald (TH’s brother): home life, 3, 27, 35; climbs Scout Rock, 23; birth, 33; moves to Mexborough, 36; outdoor activities, 38–9, 56; TH’s devotion to, 38, 45, 539; visit to Crimsworth Dene, 41–3; war service, 41, 48, 53; hunting and shooting, 44; temporary jobs, 48; emigrates to Australia, 57, 73, 80; children, 128; letter from TH on marriage to SP, 128; letter from TH on marriage difficulties, 195; and TH’s bid for Heptonstall house (Lumb Bank), 222; Nicholas meets, 238; visits England, 238, 241, 272; letter from TH on unsettled life, 286; declines return to England, 287; newsy letters from TH, 317, 328, 399; TH writes to about money, 324; TH visits in Australia, 359–60; and problem of father in old age, 384; and publication of Remains of Elmet, 391; told of father’s death, 400; Nicholas gives modelled jaguar to, 449; on mother’s death, 496; Ted and I, 558

Hughes, Glyn: Millstone Grit, 19, 389–90; Where I Used to Play on the Green, 390, 396

Hughes, Joan (Gerald’s wife), 80, 128, 171, 272, 328, 359–60

Hughes, John (TH’s grandfather; ‘Crag Jack’), 29

Hughes, John (TH’s uncle), 29

Hughes, Mary (TH’s aunt), 29

Hughes, Mary (TH’s grandmother), 29, 35

Hughes, Nicholas Farrar (TH’s son): fishing with father, 5, 60, 365, 383, 399; memory method, 84; birth, 178–9; childhood, 185; and mother’s suicide, 213; upbringing, 224–5, 231; in TH poem, 227; TH dedicates books to, 228; Ariel dedicated to (with Frieda), 237; childhood story, 238; meets uncle Gerald, 238; in Ireland with father, 245–6; on grandmother Aurelia, 254; wishes Assia to stay, 255; in Assia’s will, 266; visits grandmother Aurelia in USA, 269, 281, 299; visits the Beacon, 272; and grandmother Edith’s death, 278; TH plans to take north to live, 281; urges TH to marry Carol, 299; schooling, 301, 324, 382; trip to Scotland and Lake District, 305; in Persia, 311; fads and obsessions, 317; meets Jill Barber, 365; printing on hand press, 382; academic career as fish expert, 383, 405, 415, 561; in Alaska, 383, 405, 415, 420, 427, 493, 561; Moon-Whales dedicated to, 387; helps build writing hut, 399; visits Lake Victoria, 405–6; joins TH in Victoria, British Columbia, 422; breaks with girlfriend Madeline, 427; and TH’s environmental concerns, 427; skill as potter, 449, 561; beekeeping, 478; The Iron Woman dedicated to, 489; meets TH’s last love, 493; letter from TH on publication of Birthday Letters, 508; present at father’s death, 540; unmentioned in TH’s will, 546; shares TH’s posthumous copyright, 547; in Frieda’s Forty-Five, 559; effect of father’s death on, 561–2; suicide, 562

Hughes, Olwyn (later Thomas; TH’s sister): home life, 3, 27, 35; as TH’s agent, 10, 17, 235, 407; poetic voice, 15; and TH’s inner life, 15; contributes to Anne Stevenson’s biography of SP, 19; on TH’s attitude to women, 21; memories of childhood, 25–6, 38, 39–41; interest in astrology and occult, 27, 70, 139; and fox episode at Crimsworth Dene, 42–4; closeness to TH, 48, 273, 492, 539; schooling, 49, 53; studies at Queen Mary College, London, 63; and TH’s reading of C.G. Jung, 64; visits TH in Cambridge, 70; letters from TH, 72, 138; moves to Paris, 73, 83; work in London, 73; holidays abroad, 83; and Shirley, 90, 563; and TH’s prose writing, 120; meets SP, 125; on SP, 125, 159; SP on, 125, 160; on SP’s flare-up before Fishers, 128; letter from TH on America, 130; encounters TH and SP at The Beacon, 159–60; visits TH and SP in London, 161–2; smoking, 162, 170, 541; and TH’s Lupercal, 163; quarrels with SP, 169–71; slight acquaintance with SP, 170; stylish present-giving, 171; and TH-SP marriage breakdown, 193, 195–6, 199, 200, 533; TH sends poems to, 216; Assia’s hostility to, 223; leaves Paris and moves to Court Green, 224–5, 231; on Shura’s paternity, 242; moves to open literary agency in London, 244, 246; Assia reconciled with, 256; establishes Rainbow Press, 294; on TH’s indecision over marrying, 299; and Alvarez’s account of Sylvia’s suicide, 313–14; separates from partner, 324; and TH denying subjective voice, 332; and SP biographies, 353, 440; meets Jill Barber, 364; Emma Tennant solicits for TH or SP poems, 369; Baskin claims arranges liaison for TH, 373; relations and marriage to Richard Thomas, 383–4; marriage breakdown, 400; temporary move to Cambridge and return to Chetwynd Road, 400; helps TH with work, 404; and TH’s Laureateship, 418; meets Carol, 423; and US libel case against TH, 432; militancy, 439–41; sees stage version of The Iron Man, 490; and TH’s output in 1990s, 492; on TH’s last love affair, 493–4; and TH’s sale of papers to Emory University, 499; and TH’s final illness and death, 539–40; TH entrusts early will to, 545; unmentioned in TH’s final will, 546; shares TH’s posthumous copyright, 547; and Susan Schaeffer’s Poison, 549–51; letter to Natasha Spender, 556; refrains from biography of TH, 558; and Nick’s death, 562; see also Rainbow Press

Hughes, Ted (Edward James Hughes): deposition and testimony in Boston libel case (1986), 1–2, 7–9, 11–12, 15, 550; interest in and practice of astrology, 2, 15, 27–8, 70, 100–1, 162, 188, 328, 373, 511; Yorkshire roots, 3; fishing, 4–5, 45–6, 58–60, 317, 383, 399, 406, 421, 449, 483, 509; view of poetry, 12, 44–5, 65–6, 93–4; inner life, 15–16, 18; poetic voice, 15; financial independence as writer, 16; journals and notebooks, 17–18, 224, 231, 241, 247, 255, 320, 359, 401–4, 555; letters, 17–18, 476; sells papers to Emory University, Atlanta, 17, 500; childhood at Mytholmroyd and Mexborough, 23–7, 35, 38, 47; birth and genealogy, 27–30; spiritual life, 31; catches and values animals, 37–8, 44, 58; radio broadcasts, 37, 44, 230; outdoor excursions, 38–40, 56–9; and fox experience on visit to Crisworth Dene, 41–3; moderate drinking, 41; schooling, 47, 49, 52–5; closeness to Olwyn, 48, 273, 492, 539; reading, 49, 53–4, 59, 62, 65, 449, 481; interest in typography and printing, 50; superstitions, 50; political views, 52, 230, 425, 482; attends Cambridge University, 55, 61, 65, 67, 69–73, 79–80; size and strength, 55; early writing and poetry, 56–7, 63; early girlfriends, 58–9, 62–3, 80, 84; early letters to Edna Wholey, 59, 62; national service in Royal Air Force, 61–4; wins exhibition to Cambridge, 61; relations with Edna Wholey, 62–3; gives up shooting, 68; dress, 69, 89, 158, 174; love of music, 70, 73, 114; religious views, 70; appearance, 72, 253, 302, 370, 388; changes studies at Cambridge to Archaeology and Anthropology, 75–8; drinking, 79; writes poems at Cambridge under pseudonyms, 79; applies to emigrate to Australia, 80–1, 83–4; considers mink-farming, 83–4; poaching, 84; returns to Cambridge, 84–5, 106; casual work and money-making schemes, 87, 87–8; restricted by Cambridge authorities, 87; abandons Australian scheme, 88; verse-speaking, 88; attachment to Shirley, 89–92, 97, 105; and supernatural, 92; as story editor for film company, 97; first meets SP, 98–104; SP visits in London, 105–7; in Rugby Street, Holborn, 107–9; in SP’s unfinished novel, 111; ends relationship with Shirley, 113; forms close relationship with SP, 113–15; cooking, 115, 120, 134, 244; marriage to SP, 116; in Spain, 119–22; auditions as reader of modern poetry at BBC, 123; temporarily separated from SP, 123; occupies flat near Cambridge with SP, 124; enters and wins Harper Brothers’ poetry competition, 125, 127; schoolteaching, 126, 128; leaves for USA with SP, 128–30; children’s stories, 130, 227; reads at New York launch of The Hawk in the Rain, 134–5; writer’s block in USA, 134; occult interests, 138–9, 143, 268, 364; teaches and reads poetry at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 138–9; SP suspects of infidelity, 140–2; marriage relations with SP, 142–4, 172–3, 205; wins Guinness Poetry Award, 145; writes play (lost), 145, 155; photographed by Rollie McKenna, 146; wins Guggenheim award, 146; on American poets, 147; stays at Yaddo, 148–9, 154–6; road trip in America and Canada, 149–54; incomplete libretto for Chou Wen-chung’s oratorio, 155; Rogovin portrait, 155; in Chalcot Square flat, 160; invokes Creation myth, 165; fatherhood, 166, 171, 174, 224, 231; theatregoing, 168; minute observation, 171–2; visits to London zoo, 171; interviewed with SP on BBC radio, 172–3; visits SP in hospital, 173–4; wins Hawthornden Prize, 174; buys Devon house (Court Green), 175–8; Alvarez on, 180–1; published in The New Poetry, 180–1; life in Devon, 181–2; buys jaguar skin, 184; kisses Assia in Devon, 185–6; and myth, 189, 465–75, 505; affair with Assia, 190–1, 200, 209, 220–6, 248, 272, 296, 450–4; visits Murphy in Ireland, 192, 246–7; and marriage breakdown, 193, 195–200; Spanish holiday with Assia, 193; leaves Court Green and SP, 195, 469; heart problem, 199; affair and friendship with Susan Alliston, 203–6, 210, 214–15, 225–6, 241–2, 341, 511; finds flat in Fitzrovia (Cleveland Street), 203, 209; and SP’s emotional collapse, 206–7; visits SP in Fitzroy Road, 208–10; and SP’s death, 211–12; at SP’s funeral, 214; effect of SP’s suicide on poetic voice, 217, 250; praises Ariel, 219; publishes and promotes SP’s poems, 219, 234, 236–7; working method, 221; dreams, 223–4, 231–2, 241, 245, 254, 261, 270, 466, 487; writing limited after SP’s death, 226, 228; on England and the English, 228–30; voice and accent, 230–1; co-edits Modern Poetry in Translation, 233; earnings, 233, 497; reviewing, 233–4, 297; writes introduction to Keith Douglas poems, 234–5; edits SP’s Ariel, 236–8; child by Assia, 240; attends Spoleto Festival, 242–3; stays in Ireland with children, 244–5; appointment in Philosophy Department of Vienna University, 246; plans International Poetry Festival, 252–3, 289; collaborates with Peter Brook, 256–61, 277, 306–11, 318; relations with Brenda Hedden, 256, 266–7, 277, 280–1, 298–301, 378; version of Seneca’s Oedipus for Peter Brook, 256–9; adaptation of King Lear, 260–1; reorganizes relations with Assia, 265; simultaneous involvement with three women (A, B,C), 266–7, 270–1; attachment to Carol Orchard, 267, 277, 286, 298; falsely accused of improper behaviour in Exeter, 267–8; friendship with Heaney, 271; first TV appearance, 272–3; and deaths of Assia and Shura, 275–7, 279; and mother’s death, 278; visits dying Sue Alliston, 279–81; buys Lumb Bank (house), Heptonstall, 281–2, 286; wins City of Florence Prize for poetry, 282; considers shared purchase of Devon house with Gerald, 287; refuses to sell manuscripts, 287; misidentified as the ‘M1 sex murderer’, 295; environmental/ecological concerns, 297–8, 411, 415, 425–7, 475, 554; torn between Brenda and Carol, 298–9; marriage to Carol, 299, 423–4; visit to Israel, 301–2; campus readings in USA, 302; sexual potency, 302–3; invents language (Orghast), 307–12; presents play in Persia with Peter Brook, 307–12; writes play in invented language, 307–8; protests to Alvarez on writing of SP’s suicide, 312–14; money worries, 316, 324, 328–9, 381; farming, 318–19, 325, 328, 350, 362; self-examination and exhortation, 320, 402–3; translates Pilinszky, 320–2; haunted by SP, 322, 325–6; collecting, 324; receives Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, 324–5, 418, 476; activities and interests, 325; devotion to Arvon Foundation, 325; capital assets, 326; creates trust for Frieda and Nick, 326; fear of throat cancer refuted, 326; avoids autobiographical voice, 331–2; exposed in Ariel, 332; verse drama, 332; openly addresses SP’s suicide, 338–9; feminist hostility to, 346; Robin Morgan accuses of murder of SP, 347–9; collaborates with Aurelia over publication of SP’s letters, 350; and editing and publication of SP’s letters, 351, 352; foreword to The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 354–5; visits Australia for Adelaide Festival, 359–62; affair with Jill Barber, 361, 363–6, 369–70; harassed by ‘libbers’, 361–2; relations with Emma Tennant, 370–1; view of women, 372–5; friends’ views of affairs, 373; champions women writers, 374; explains poetry in Dhaka, 375–7; confesses feelings for SP to Carolyne Wright, 378; appointed OBE, 384; displaces hip, 385; scheme to professionalise school poetry readings, 385; Fay Godwin photograph, 388; plans travels abroad, 399; travels to Alaska, 399, 405, 420–1, 494; character observation, 401–2; again injures hip, 402; trip to Mexico City, 403; visits Lake Victoria, 405; opposes new sewage works at Bideford, 410–11; foreword to The Complete Prints of Leonard Baskin, 415; honorary doctorate from Exeter University, 415; cruise on Nile, 417; poetry readings, 417; appointed Poet Laureate, 418–19; honours, 418; captures peacock at Court Green, 424–5; role as Laureate, 429; summoned to court in USA, 430–2, 434; attends Bell Jar libel case, 435–6, 439; and settlement of Bell Jar case, 438, 441; reluctance to sue, 439; SP’s harsh words on, 439; replies to accusation of neglecting SP’s grave, 441; sues Trevor Thomas, 442; acquires potter’s wheel, 449; library shipped to Atlanta, Georgia, 449; sequence of poems on Assia (‘A’ poems), 452–5; devotion to Shakespeare, 457–8; same-sex desire absent from works, 469; interest in London demi-monde, 472; public activities, 475–7; responds to questions about poems, 480; table talk, 481–2; joint anthology with Heaney, 483–4; socialises with royal family, 483–5; inscribes books for hosts, 484; Laureate poems published, 486–8; public criticisms of, 488–9; aims to make money for different life, 492–3; output in 1990s, 492, 495, 501; final illness, 493; last love affair, 493–4; theatre work, 495–500; translates Wedekind, 495, 497–9; translates Lorca, 499–500; cancer and chemotherapy, 502, 504, 509, 529; translates Greek and Latin classics, 502, 527–34; breaks silence over life and suicide of SP with Birthday Letters, 503–9; reflects on blocked creativity, 505–6; translates Racine, 532; awarded Order of Merit, 538; death, 539–41; translates Pushkin, 539; funeral and cremation, 541–2, 546; memorial service in Westminster Abbey, 543; final will and value of estate, 546–8; depicted in Schaeffer’s Poison, 548–52; selected letters published, 553–5; archive, 555, 557; view of posthumous biography, 556–8

Hughes, William Henry (TH’s father): home life, 3, 27; marriage, 30, 33; occupation (carpenter), 30, 34; footballing, 33–4, 396; in Great War, 33, 40–1, 516; moves to work in South Wales, 35; takes over newsagents’ shop in Mexborough, 35–6, 47–8; moves to shop in Todmorden, 65; at SP’s funeral, 213; hostility to Assia, 246–7, 253; and wife’s death, 278; and fire at Lumb Bank, 305; grumpiness as widower, 317–18; stays at Court Green, 318; TH wishes to move to Devon, 328; visits Australia with TH, 359, 363; attempted infidelity, 381; difficulties in old age, 384, 399; hospitalised and death, 400, 560; alluded to in ‘October Salmon’, 410

Humperdinck, Engelbert (pop singer), 300

Hutchinson, Mary, 520

Huws, Daniel: at Cambridge with TH, 74, 86–7, 479; writes poetry at Cambridge, 79; TH stays in father’s London flat, 84, 123, 526; criticises SP’s poems, 99, 341, 522; TH writes to from New York, 135; marriage, 191; TH and SP stay with, 191; and TH’s need to give account of marriage to SP, 354; letter from TH on upheaval in late life, 536; Memories of Ted Hughes, 558

Huws, Helga, 191

‘Hypnotising Husband, The’ (SP; story), 120

‘I know well’ (TH; poem), 340

Ibstock Place (school, London), 301

Icarus (mythological figure), 473–4

Iceland, 383

‘Icon, An’ (TH; earlier ‘Portraits’; poem), 515

Ilkley Literature Festival, 323

Imlah, Mick, 429

‘Inscription, The’ (TH; poem), 210, 513, 523

‘Insomniac’ (SP; poem), 192

Ionesco, Eugène, 83

Iran see Persia

Ireland: TH idealizes, 91, 93, 276, 282, 301; TH and SP visit, 192–3; TH visits with children, 244–6; TH visits after Assia’s death, 276–7; TH visits with Brenda, 300; TH takes Jill Barber to meet Nick, 365; TH’s fishing trips in, 365, 375

Iron Man, The (The Iron Giant in USA; TH; children’s book), 261–3; adapted at Young Vic as musical, 489–90, 497

‘Iron Wolf, The’ (TH; poem), 382, 413

Iron Woman, The (TH; fable for children), 427, 489

Israel: TH visits with Carol, 301–2

Italy, 324

J. Arthur Rank (film company), 97

‘Jaguar, The’ (TH; poem), 94–6, 105, 135, 137

‘Jaguar Skin, The’ (TH; poem), 183

‘Jailor, The’ (SP; poem), 201, 237, 296, 346, 443

James and James (publishers), 407

Jay, Peter, 430

Jean (nanny), 219, 222

Jeff, Christine, 548

Jews: in TH’s poems for Assia, 452, 454–6

Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams (SP; stories), 354

Johnson, Alan, 55

Johnson, Samuel, 76, 402

Jones, Jeffrey, 432, 433

Jong, Erica, 302–3

Jonson, Ben, 462

Joseph, Rosemary, 88–9

Journals of Sylvia Plath, The: publication, 354–5, 522

Jung, C.G.: on synchronicity, 95; TH reads, 331, 351; SP reads, 351; Psychological Types, 54, 63–4, 67; Sacred Marriage, 231; Symbols of Transformation, 157; The Undiscovered Self, 146

Kane, Kathy, 237

Kane, Marvin, 184, 237

‘Karlsbad Caverns’ (TH; poem), 523

Kavanagh, Patrick, 252

Kayak (Oxford girl): claims to be TH’s daughter, 480–1

Keats, John, 405, 424, 460; letters, 554

Keen, Peter: provides photographs for River, 406–7, 410

Kennedy, John F., 179

Kent, Jonathan, 532, 537

Key, Percy and Rose, 184

‘Kindness’ (SP; poem), 240

King, John, Baron, 485

‘Kingfisher’ (TH; poem), 413

Kipling, Rudyard, 53, 411, 495

Knopf, Alfred, 174

Kopp, Jane Baltzell, 356

Kovner, Victor, 434, 437–9, 481

Kroll, Judith, 350–2, 355; Chapters in a Mythology: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath, 353

Krook, Dorothea, 126, 356

Kunitz, Stanley, 145, 167

‘Laburnum, The’ (TH; poem), 523

‘Lady Lazarus’ (SP; poem), 236, 239

Lameyer, Gordon, 103, 110, 356–8, 436–7, 442

Larkin, Philip: parodies Crow, 14; memorable lines, 15; as librarian, 16; style, 135; as Movement poet, 180, 320; and sexual experience, 206; as judge for Arvon International Poetry Competition, 385–6; as candidate for Poet Laureateship, 417–18; criticises TH’s Wolfwatching, 428; TH disparages, 554; instructs executors to burn manuscripts, 555; ‘At Grass’ (poem), 180; ‘Aubade’ (poem), 386; ‘MCMXIV’ (poem), 137

Lasdun, James, 490, 495

‘Last, The’ (TH; poem), 513

‘Last Letter’ (TH; poem), 215, 524–6

‘Law in the Country of the Cats’ (TH; poem), 102

Lawrence, D.H., 52, 148, 180, 251, 389; Lady Chatterley’s Lover (trial), 169; The Rainbow, 181

‘Leaf Mould’ (TH; poem), 396, 428

‘Learning to Think’ (TH; talk), 44

Leavis, F.R., 69, 71, 74, 76, 86, 89, 181

Lee, Hermione, 488

Leeming, Owen, 173

‘Lesbos’ (SP; poem), 195, 237, 347

Lessing, Doris, 243, 349

Letters Home: Correspondence 1950–1963 (SP; edited Aurelia Plath), 19, 353, 552–3

Letters of Ted Hughes: serves as autobiography, 553–5

Levy, Laurie, 356

Lewis, Alun, 66

‘Life after Death’ (TH; poem), 227

‘Lily’ (TH; poem), 189

Lipsey, Dicky, 452

Listener, The (magazine), 14

Listening and Writing (BBC radio series), 37

Litle Gidding, 31

Little, Brown (publisher), 3

Little Missenden Harvest Festival (1968), 326

Lloyd, Reginald J., 414, 430, 489, 538

‘Lodger, The’ (TH; poem), 199

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth: Hiawatha, 59

Loren, Sophia, 477

‘Lovesong’ (earlier ‘Second Bedtime Story’; TH; poem), 270, 362

Lowell, Robert, 145, 179–80, 220, 239, 252, 347, 565–6; For the Union Dead, 239; ‘The Ghost’ (translation of Propertius), 565; Life Studies, 146–8, 156, 180–1, 216, 239, 331, 566; ‘The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket’ (poem), 185; ‘Waking in the blue’ (poem), 147

Lucas, F.W., 408

Lucie-Smith, Edward, 88, 275–6

Lukács, László: marriage to Frieda, 478, 480, 560; moves to England, 502

Lumb Bank (house), Heptonstall: TH puts in offer for, 222–3; TH buys, 281, 286; fire, 305–6, 559; renovated and leased to Arvon Foundation, 325; maintenance costs, 328; valuation, 329

‘Lumb Chimney’ (TH; poem), 392

Lupercal (earlier ‘Lupercalia’; TH; poetry collection): publication and reception, 153, 155, 163–4, 166–8, 200–1; awarded Hawthornden Prize, 174; writing, 186, 196; and Wodwo, 249–50; qualities, 271–2; Shakespeare allusions, 458

Lyde, Joe, 75, 98

Lyonesse (SP; poetry collection), 347

MacBeth, George, 18, 165

MacCaig, Norman, 167

McCall’s (magazine), 305

McCaughey, Revd Terence, 70, 74, 84, 466, 476, 542

McCullough, Fran, 173, 303–4, 352, 354

MacDiarmid, Hugh, 252

Macedo, Suzette, 186

McEnroe, John, 403

MacGibbon, James, 407

McKenna, Rollie, 146, 221

McKinley (gamekeeper), 38, 74

Mackle, Joanna, 485, 503

MacLean, Sorley, 476

McLeod, Miss (schoolteacher), 52

MacNeice, Louis, 169

Maddux, Hilary, 348

Madge, Anna, 268

Madonna, 481

‘Magic Mirror, The’ (SP; undergraduate thesis), 11, 256

Mahabharata (Indian epic), 261

Mailer, Norman, 432

Major, John, 475

Malamud, Bernard, 20

Malcolm, Janet: The Silent Woman, 440

Malinowski, Bronisław, 77–8

‘Man in Black’ (SP; poem), 157

Manly, George, 183

Mann, Thomas, 224

‘March Calf, A’ (TH; poem), 327

Marowitz, Charles, 260

Mars (magazine), 364, 374

Marx, Karl, 389

‘Masque for Three Voices, A’ (TH; poem), 487

May, Derwent, 251

‘Mayday on Holderness’ (TH; poem), 163–4

Mayne, Pauline, 37, 43, 53

Mayo, Barbara, 295

Mead, Margaret, 77–8

‘Medusa’ (SP; poem), 10, 45, 350

Meet My Folks (TH; children’s poems), 45, 148

Menotti, Gian Carlo, 243

Merchant, Moelwyn, 299, 477

Mermaid’s Purse, The (TH; children’s poems), 489

Merwin, Dido, 136, 160–1, 163, 203, 206, 401–2, 542

Merwin, W.S.: reviews The Hawk in the Rain, 136; in London, 160–2, 169, 203; on CND march, 163; TH and SP visit in Dordogne, 175; separation from Dido, 401

‘Metamorphosis’ (SP; poem), 114

Mexborough, Yorkshire, 35, 47

Mexborough Grammar School, 3, 49, 52–3, 63

Mexico City, 403

Michel, Caroline (Mrs Matthew Evans), 504

Michie, James, 161, 352, 435

Middlebrook, Diane: Her Husband, 19

Millais, John Everett: painting of Ophelia, 410

Miller, Arthur, 159

Miller, Karl, 78, 96, 353, 405

Miłosz, Czesław, 233, 282

Milton, John, 464; Lycidas, 512

‘Minotaur, The’ (TH; poem), 198

‘Minotaur 2’ (TH; poem), 523

Minton, Than, 99, 212, 401

Mitchell, Adrian, 360, 362

Moat, John, 325

Modern Poetry in Translation (magazine), 86, 233, 252

Modern Poets, The: An American-British Anthology, 146, 221

‘Money, my enemy’ (TH; poem), 16

Monroe, Marilyn, 159

Montaigne, Michel de, 255

Monteith, Charles: and Larkin’s parody of Crow, 14; and TH’s Meet My Folks, 148; at Faber party, 169; publishes Murphy, 192; and publication of Ariel, 234; recommends TH for post in Germany, 242; asks TH to edit Emily Brontë poems, 272, 458; and TH’s Gaudete, 334; and The Rattle Bag, 386; and TH’s proposed Remains of Elmet, 388; and A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse, 458–60; retires, 536; see also Faber and Faber (publishers)

‘Moon and Yew Tree, The’ (SP; poem), 12, 345

Moon-Bells (TH; poems), 387–8

Moon-Whales and Other Moon Poems (TH; poems), 387

Moore, Clem, 203–4, 211

Moore, Marianne, 135, 144

Moors Murders, 295, 390

Moortown Diary (Moortown Elegies; Moortown; TH; farming book), 272, 319, 323–4, 343–4, 349, 405

Morgan, Robin: accuses TH of abuse and rape of SP, 347–9, 432, 439, 513, 535; ‘Arraignment’ (poem), 347–9; Monster, 347–9; Sisterhood is Powerful (ed.), 345–6

‘Morning before Christmas, The’ (TH; poem), 409

‘Morning Song’ (SP; poem), 216, 238

Morpurgo, Clare, 417, 425, 499

Morpurgo, Horatio, 481–2

Morpurgo, Michael, 42–3, 414, 417, 425, 499

Morrigu Press, The, 382

Mosley, Sir Oswald, 52

Motion, Andrew, 386, 488, 502–3

Mottram, Eric, 73

Movement, The (school of poets), 180

Muir, Edwin, 135

Murphy, Richard: rejects SP’s advances, 153, 314; background, 191; poetry, 191–2; invites TH to Ireland, 193; and publication of Ariel, 236–8; moves to Doonreaghan, Cashel, 244; TH visits in Ireland, 246–7; and first Poetry International Festival, 252; and TH’s move to Lumb House, 282; campus readings in USA with TH, 302; TH praises Jill Barber to, 363; letter from TH on exhaustion, 399; TH meets at Connaught hotel, London, 537

Myers, Lucas (‘Luke’): on TH’s inner life, 16; at Cambridge, 86–7, 106, 114; SP meets, 98–9, 104; in Paris, 119; visits TH and SP in USA, 145; letter from TH on American poetry, 147; visits TH and SP in London, 161; and SP’s rages, 175; and TH’s writer’s block, 226; newsy letter from TH, 256; TH meets in New York, 302; letter from TH on Orghast, 312; and TH’s trouble with tax inspector, 381; and TH’s fishing, 406; and TH’s depression, 413, 416; TH describes Nick to, 415; TH’s correspondence with, 476; Crow Steered, Bergs Appeared, 558

Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, 3, 23, 26–7, 33

National Rivers Authority, 475

National Service Act (1949), 61

National Theatre, London, 256

Neruda, Pablo, 243, 252–3

Nessie the Mannerless Monster (TH; comic verse), 228

Neville, Jill, 314

New American Review, 312

New Selected Poems 1957–1994 (TH), 189, 360, 485, 496, 507, 515, 522

New Selected Poems (1982; TH), 407

New Writing (ed. Malcolm Bradbury and Andrew Motion), 502

‘New Year’ (TH; poem), 409

New York Review of Books, 353

New York Times, 167, 227

New York Times Book Review, 293

New Yorker (magazine), 124, 157, 174

Newman, Charles (ed.): The Art of Sylvia Plath, 345

Newsweek (US magazine), 292

‘Nicholas’ (SP; poem), 157

‘Nicholas Ferrer’ (TH; poem), 31, 145

Nicholson, Max: The Environmental Revolution, 297–8

‘Nick and the Candlestick’ (SP; poem), 202, 216

Nicola (bank manager’s daughter), 181–3

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 93

Nile, river: TL cruises on, 417

Norris, Hilda, 62

North Tawton, Devon see Court Green

North-East Drift New Salmon Fishery (Northumbria), 475

Northampton, Mass., 133–4

Northcott Theatre, Exeter, 527

Northern Broadsides (theatre company), 533

Norton, Dick, 357–8, 436

‘Notes on the Chronological Order of Sylvia Plath’s Poems’ (TH; essay), 345

Nye, Robert, 228

Oates, Joyce Carol, 355

O’Brien, Conor Cruise, 191

O’Brien, Edna, 374, 374–5

O’Brien, Sean, 488

Observer (newspaper), 166–7, 213, 312, 314, 316, 386, 419, 445, 504

O’Connell, Fintan, 75

‘October Salmon’ (TH; poem), 409, 411

‘Ode for Ted’ (SP; poem), 114

‘Offers, The’ (TH; poem), 255, 379, 510, 523, 526, 562–4

Old Vic theatre, 257, 259

Olsen, John, 367

‘Once I said lightly’ (TH; poem), 339

‘Open to Huge Light’ (TH; poem), 392

‘Ophelia’ (TH; poem), 410

‘Opus 131’ (TH; poem), 521–2

Orchard, Carol see Hughes, Carol

Orchard, Jack (Carol’s father): background, 254; assists TH in running Court Green, 317; cancer and death, 329, 343, 363, 542; TH dedicates poems to memory, 342–4, 389

Orchard, Jean (Carol’s sister), 384, 483

Orchard, Minnie (née Evans), 254

Orchard, Robert (Carol’s brother), 255, 385

Order of Merit: awarded to TH, 4, 538

Orghast (TH; play and invented language), 307, 309–12, 322–3

Orley House, Bideford, 18

Orpheus (TH; children’s play), 322

Orts (TH; poems), 341–2, 393, 410

Osborne, John, 229

‘Other, The’ (TH; poem), 450

‘Otter, An’ (TH; poem), 164, 273, 325

Ovid: Metamorphoses, 490, 527–31

Owen, Roger, 74

Owen, Wilfred, 477; Collected Poems, 236

Oxford, 161

Palmer and Dodge (Boston lawyers), 6, 432

Paltrow, Gwyneth, 548

‘Paris 1954’ (TH; poem), 510

Paris: TH visits, 83, 306; SP in, 106–7, 110; TH and SP honeymoon in, 119

Pasternak, Boris, 260

Paulin, Tom, 504

Pavese, Cesare, 404

Peabody and Arnold (law firm), 6

Pease, David, 385

Pembroke College, Cambridge, 61, 65, 71, 73, 80

Penguin Books, 179

‘Pennines in April’ (TH; poem), 164

‘Perfect Light’ (TH; poem), 184

Perloff, Marjorie, 355

Persia (Iran), 307–10, 559

Philip, Prince, Duke of Edinburgh, 385, 485

‘Pike’ (TH; poem), 145, 160, 186, 271

Pilinszky, János, 320–2, 369, 430

‘Pink Wool Knitted Dress, A’ (TH; poem), 523

Pinner, David: Ritual, 333

Pinter, Harold: The Caretaker, 168

‘Platform One’ (TH; poem), 518

Plath, Aurelia (SP’s mother): and autobiographical elements in SP’s work, 10; and editing of SP’s Letters Home, 19, 350, 352–3, 552; letters from SP, 115, 160; visits SP in England and attends wedding, 116, 119; complains of TH’s not having proper job, 144; buys air mattresses for TH and SP, 149; letters from TH, 159, 276; birth of children, 162–3, 179; cares for Frieda during TH and SP’s travels, 175; visits TH and SP in Devon, 187; final sight of SP, 191; letter from TH on SP’s death, 219; announces visit to see SP’s grave, 222; postpones visit to England, 244; visits England to see grandchildren, 253–4; character and qualities, 254; SP’s attitude to, 254, 518; grandchildren visit in USA, 269, 281, 299; and death of TH’s mother, 278; declines to share cost of Devon house with TH, 288; deposits money into accounts for Frieda and Nick, 288; affected by US publication of The Bell Jar, 304, 350; heart attack, 350; TH visits at Wellesley, 433; and Bell Jar libel case, 434–5

Plath, Margaret (Warren’s wife), 214

Plath, Otto (Sylvia’s father): in SP poem, 8; death, 115, 142, 144, 314, 518; grave, 157–8; supposed sympathy for Hitler, 165; SP’s relations with, 222, 351, 474, 518; in SP’s writings, 445–6; Germanic tendencies, 451; beekeeping, 478; birth, 515; see also ‘Daddy’

Plath, Sylvia: suicide, 1–2, 211–13, 226–7, 239, 240, 250, 446–7, 455, 524; fights with TH, 4, 142; grave, 4, 395, 400, 519, 536, 558; anger at Jane Anderson, 6–7; autobiographical writing, 8, 10; biographers, 11–12, 19, 21, 440; as ‘split personality’, 11; journals, 17, 220, 247, 354–5, 504, 519, 522, 532; TH writes account of last days, 18; TH quotes in broadcast talk, 45; acquires and moves to Devon house (Court Green), 51, 175–8; at Cambridge, 75, 87; irritated by Joe Lyde, 75; first meets TH, 98–104, 523; Huws criticises poem at Cambridge, 99, 341, 522; appearance, 101, 159; sexual precocity, 103–4; visits TH in London, 107–10; travels in Europe, 110; writes of TH, 111; forms close relationship with TH, 113–15; cooking, 115, 120–1, 125, 159, 178, 208; and father’s death, 115, 142, 144–5, 157–8, 314, 446, 518; letters to mother, 115; wedding, 116–17; in Spain, 119–22; visits TH’s family, 122; temporarily separated from TH on return to Cambridge, 123; occupies flat near Cambridge with TH, 124; organises publication of TH’s poems, 124, 127; on Olwyn, 125; Olwyn describes, 125; teaching post at Smith College, 127, 133; flare-up before Fishers, 128–9; returns to USA, 129; TH teaches poetic economy, 130, 140; writing, 130–1; dreams, 131, 159, 515; exhausted by teaching and poor health, 138; admiration for TH’s poetry, 139; cult, 140; suspects TH of infidelity, 140–2; undergoes psychoanalysis, 142, 144, 157, 171; marriage relations, 143–5, 172–3, 205; confessional poetry, 146–7; photographed by Rollie McKenna, 146, 221; stays at Yaddo, 148–9, 154–7, 159; road trip in America and Canada, 149–54; pregnancies, 153–4, 157, 160, 175, 178; Rogovin portrait, 155, 158; occupies Chalcot Square flat in London, 160; rude behaviour, 161–2; at Faber party, 168–9; quarrel with Olwyn, 169–71; interviewed with TH on BBC radio, 172–3; poetic technique, 172; destroys TH manscripts, 173, 190; miscarriage, 173; TH visits in hospital, 173–4; outbursts of rage, 175, 196, 198; wins Eugene Saxton Grant, 178; not published in The New Poetry, 181; attitude to Nicola, 182–3; projected novel on life in Devon, 183, 220; and TH’s affair with Assia, 188, 191; awarded Guinness Prize, 192; visits Murphy in Ireland, 192; Murphy rejects advances, 193, 314; wishes for legal separation, 193; marriage breakdown, 195–8, 200, 219, 510; dislikes country life, 200; poetry matures, 201, 216; moves to Fitzroy Road, London, 202–3, 208; pleased at living apart from TH, 202; relations with Alvarez, 202, 214–15; breakdown before TH, 206–7; demands TH leave country, 208–9; funeral, 213; relations with father, 222, 351, 474, 518; reads Keith Douglas poems, 235–6; attitude to mother, 254, 518; ‘woman’s magazine’ element in writing, 255; TH dreams of, 270; legacy, 303; manuscripts stolen from Court Green, 311; Alvarez writes on suicide, 312–14; hurt by male rejection, 314–15; haunts TH, 322, 325–6; poetic style, 327; TH elegises, 332; as feminist icon, 346, 511–12; and Morgan’s attack on TH, 347–9; editing and publication of letters, 350–2; Kroll’s study of, 350–3; mother proposes publishing letters, 350; posthumous earnings taxed, 381, 413; manuscripts sold by Sotheby’s, 385, 413; photographed at Top Withens, 392, 397; in TH’s ‘Heptonstall Cemetery’, 394, 397; beekeeping, 414, 478; harsh words on TH, 439; gravestone defaced by feminists, 441; in TH’s ‘Trial’, 442–7; writings on father, 445–6; TH casts as Shakespeare character, 458; and myth, 471, 473–4; and TH’s notion of the Goddess, 473; proposed film on marriage to TH, 481; TH’s confessional poems on, 496; and publication of Birthday Letters, 503, 509–23; in TH’s Silvine Notebook (‘The Sorrows of the Deer’), 512–14; in TH’s ‘Black Coat’, 515, 517–18; in TH’s Alcestis translation, 534–5; depicted in Susan Schaeffer’s Poison, 548–52; letters published, 552–3; TH burns last journal, 555; TH sees ghost, 562–4; in TH’s ‘The Offers’, 563–5; centrality in TH’s mental world, 566

Plath, Warren (SP’s brother): letters from SP, 115–16, 121; in Paris, 122; visits TH and SP in Cape Cod, 129; letter from TH, 159; helps removal to Devon, 178; marriage, 187; as classmate with Clem Moore, 203; at SP’s funeral, 214

Ploughshares (magazine), 189

Poe, Edgar Allan, 356

‘Poem for a Birthday’ (SP; poem), 156, 158, 161, 174, 354

Poems (TH with Alan Sillitoe and Ruth Fainlight), 295

Poetry at the Mermaid (festival), 191–2

Poetry Book Society, 191, 428; Bulletin, 238, 428

Poetry Center, New York, 134

Poetry from Cambridge 1952–4 (collection), 96

Poetry International Festival: first, London (1967), 252–3, 289; second (1969), 279–80

Poetry in the Making (TH; school book), 37, 43, 173

Poetry Now (radio programme), 165

Pollard, Charlie, 184

Popa, Vasko, 233, 282, 291; Collected Poems, 283

Porter, Jannice, 221, 275

Porter, Peter, 88, 221, 275, 292

‘Portraits’ (TH; character sketches), 402

Pound, Ezra, 179, 243

Pratt, Alexander Jr (‘Sandy’), 6, 436–7

Preston, Gill, 211

Primer for Birds, A (TH; poems), 413

Prior, Maddy, 334, 362

‘Prism, The’ (TH; poem), 132

Private Eye (magazine), 14

Prometheus (mythical figure), 307, 309, 322–3

Prometheus on his Crag (TH; poems), 323, 331, 343

Propertius, Sextus, 565

Protestantism, 467

Pryor, Felix, 385

‘Puma’ (TH; poem), 382, 413

Puritanism, 462, 468, 501

‘Pursuit’ (SP; poem), 105, 532

Purves, Libby, 558

Pushkin, Alexander: ‘The Prophet’, 539

Queen Elizabeth, RMS, 129

Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, 324–5, 476

‘Rabbit Catcher, The’ (SP; poem), 187, 237, 395, 440–1, 530–1

‘Rabbit Catcher, The’ (TH; poem), 187

Racine, Jean: Phèdre, 482, 532, 537, 566

Radin, Paul: ‘The Trickster Cycle of the Winnebago Indians’, 289

Radio Times, 233

‘Rain Horse, The’ (TH; story), 57, 181, 249

Rain-Charm for the Duchy (TH; collection), 486, 488, 497

‘Rain-Charm for the Duchy’ (TH; poem), 419, 486

Rainbow Press, 294–5, 323, 341–2, 346, 387, 390

Raine, Katheen, 268, 506

Ramanujan, A.K.: Speaking of Siva, 337–9

Random House (publishers), 347–8

Rankin, David, 363, 367

Rankin, Jennifer: TH’s attachment to, 363, 367, 374; cancer and death, 368, 527; TH’s elegies for, 502; letters from TH, 553; Earth Hold, 367–8; ‘North Devon poem’, 367

Rankin, Jessica, 367

Ransom, John Crowe, 147

‘Rat under the Bowler, The’ (TH; article), 229–30

Rattle Bag, The (TH with Heaney; children’s anthology), 386, 483, 485

Reading, Peter, 488

‘Red’ (TH; poem), 102

Redgrave, Vanessa, 203

Redgrove, Peter, 79, 88, 256, 268, 303, 306, 465, 516

Redgrove, Zoe, 268, 299

Reid, Christopher, 410, 467, 553–4

‘Religion’ (TH; poem), 510

Remains of Elmet (TH; poems), 391–5, 406, 428; reissued as part of Three Books, 395–6, 411, 429

‘Remembrance of Elmet’ (TH), 19

‘Remission’ (TH; poem) see ‘Delivering Frieda’

Rhys, Jean, 235

Riding, Laura, 17

Rigg, Dame Diana, 537

Rilke, Rainer Maria: ‘The Panther’ (poem), 96, 135

Ringwald, Molly, 481

River (TH; poetry collection), 395–6, 407–11, 419, 542

Robertshaw, Derek, 38

Roche, Clarissa, 139, 200, 356

Roche, Paul, 139–40

‘Rock, The’ (TH; poem), 25

‘Roe-deer’ (TH; diary poem), 319

Roethke, Theodore, 156, 174, 216; ‘The Dream’ (poem), 224

Rogovin, Howard, 155, 158

‘Roosting Hawk’ (TH; poem), 145

Rose, Gerald, 228

Rose, Jacqueline: The Haunting of Sylvia Plath, 440–1, 489, 531

Rosenthal, M.L., 146, 239, 345

Ross, David, 86–7, 99, 211, 220

Roth, Philip, 433

Rougemont Press (Exeter), 294

Rowse, A.L., 488

Royal Shakespeare Company, 256–7, 307, 495, 497–9

Royal Society of Literature: awards prize to Moortown, 405

Rugby Street, Holborn (London), 107–9, 123, 160, 214

Ruskin, John, 404

Rutter, Barrie, 533

Rylands, George (‘Dadie’), 74

Sacred Earth Drama Trust, 485

Sacred Earth Dramas (plays), 485, 499

‘Sacrifice’ (earlier ‘Uncle A’; TH; poem), 217, 428, 429, 450

Sagar, Keith, 338, 428, 477

Saint Botolph’s Review, 88–9, 91–2, 98, 101

St John’s College, Cambridge, 77

Salinger, J.D.: The Catcher in the Rye, 182

‘Salmon Eggs’ (TH; poem), 409, 411

Salmon and Trout Association, 425

Sassoon, George, 124

Sassoon, Richard, 103–4, 106, 110, 119, 514

Sassoon, Siegfried, 104

Saturday Night (magazine), 228

Saxton, Joe, 561–2

Scammell, William, 339, 477, 491

Schaeffer, Neil, 432

Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg, 302, 432; Poison (novel), 548–52

Scofield, Paul, 256, 260

Scotland, 305

Scout Rock, Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, 23–7

Season Songs (TH; poems for children), 326–7, 349, 365, 413, 414, 506, 513

Secker and Warburg (publishers), 367

‘Secret of Man’s Wife, The’ (TH; story), 495

‘Secretary’ (TH; poem), 88–9, 183

Selected Poems (TH; 1974), 322, 413; (1982 edition), 414, 496

Seneca: Oedipus, 256–8, 282, 306

‘Setebos’ (TH; poem), 458, 519

Seven Samurai (film), 182

Sexton, Anne, 252

Seymour, Brian, 38

‘Shakespeare, drafting his will in 1605, plots an autobiographical play for 1606’ (TH; poem), 544

Shakespeare, Edmund (William’s nephew), 545

Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being (TH), 20, 67, 165, 261, 459, 461, 465–71, 477, 483, 487, 489–90

Shakespeare, William: TH reveres, 13, 54–5, 457; qualities, 20; Fisher teaches, 53; TH writes on, 325; TH edits choice of verse, 459, 485; and mythology, 460, 463, 469, 473–4; TH’s interpretation of, 461–74; and ‘new criticism’, 471; obscures own self, 532; TH’s poem on drafting will, 544; All’s Well that Ends Well, 468–71; As You Like It, 465; Comedy of Errors, 487, 497; Hamlet, 442; Henry IV plays, 462; Henry VIII (with Fletcher), 458; King Lear, 260–2, 307, 442, 469, 544–5; Macbeth, 285; Measure for Measure, 462, 465; Midsummer Night’s Dream, 307; The Rape of Lucrece, 462; Sonnets, 469; The Tempest, 307, 460, 465; Timon of Athens, 523; Troilus and Cressida, 469, 471; Twelfth Night, 497; The Two Noble Kinsmen (with Fletcher), 54, 458, 471; Venus and Adonis, 56, 462, 465; The Winter’s Tale, 532–3

Shakespeare’s Ovid (TH; translations), 495

‘Shall I die? Shall I fly?’ (supposed Shakespeare lyric), 475–6

‘Sheep in Fog’ (SP; poem), 220, 237, 394, 473–4; TH’s essay on, 491

Shelley, Mary, 354

Shelley, Percy Bysshe: Defence of Poetry, 85

Shirley (Cambridge girlfriend), 89–92, 97–101, 105, 113, 115, 514, 522

Shura see Wevill, Alexandra Tatiana Elise

Shuttle, Penelope, 268, 299, 402, 465

Sigmund, Elizabeth see Compton, Elizabeth

Sillitoe, Alan, 174, 184, 229, 247, 295, 299, 372, 490

Silvine Notebook (TH), 511–14

‘Single Vision and Newton’s Sleep in John Carey’ (TH; essay), 470

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (14th century poem), 88; TH translates, 538

‘Six Young Men’ (TH; poem), 102, 137, 273

Sjöman, Vilgot, 333

‘Skylarks’ (TH; lyrics), 289

Smith College, Northampton, Mass.: SP teaches at, 127, 129, 133

Smith, Shirley, 563

‘Snake in the Oak, The’ (TH; essay), 491

‘Snow’ (TH; poem), 450–1

Soho House, London, 490

‘Soho Square’ (TH; poem), 206–7, 215, 526

‘Some Pike for Nicholas’ (TH; poem), 539

Somerset Maugham Award, 162, 175

‘Song’ (TH; poem), 63, 331, 337, 460, 480, 506

‘Song of a Rat’ (TH; poem), 251

‘Song of the Sorry Lovers’ (TH; poem), 79

Sonnenberg, Ben, 55, 94–5, 288, 433, 440, 476

‘Sorrows of the Deer’ (TH; notebook), 325, 511–14, 517–24

Sotheby’s (auction house): sells SP’s manuscripts, 385, 413

Soundings (Donya Feuer’s one-woman show), 465

Southampton, Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of, 468

Spain: TH and SP visit, 119–22; Assia visits with TH, 193, 203

Spectator (magazine), 167, 239, 297, 396

Spender, Natasha, 168, 556

Spender, Stephen, 125, 168–9, 243, 252–3, 292, 481, 556

Spitteler, Carl: Prometheus and Epimetheus, 64

Spoleto: Festival dei Due Mondo, 242–3

Spring Summer Autumn Winter (TH; songs for children), 326

Steeleye Span (folk band), 334

Steiner, George, 76, 239, 345, 347–8

Stevenson, Anne: Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath, 19, 440

Stewart, Hamish, 98, 100, 103–4

Stoppard, Tom, 308

‘Stopped Dead’ (SP; poem), 237

Storey, David, 229

Story of Vasco, The (TH; opera libretto), 322

Stothard, Peter, 503

Streatfeild, Noel, 509

Struga Poetry Festival, Macedonia, 496

‘Suffering Angel’ (SP; essay), 202

‘Suitor, The’ (TH; story), 249, 250

Sumpter, John, 426

‘Sunday’ (TH; story), 251

Sunday Times, 469–70, 476

‘Sunstroke’ (TH; poem), 163

‘Sunstruck Foxglove’ (TH; poem), 366, 430

‘Superstitions’ (TH; poem), 510

Supple, Tim, 497–9, 538

Sutcliffe, John, 34

Sweeney, Jack, 136

Swift, Jonathan, 71, 491

Switzerland: TH visits, 83

Sykes Davies, Hugh, 74

Sylvia (film), 548

Symons, Julian, 334

‘Table, The’ (TH; poem), 178

Tales from Ovid (TH; verse translations), 491, 528–31, 538

Tarn, Nathaniel, 190, 193–4, 196, 203, 220, 275, 316

Taylor, Elizabeth, 257

Taylor, Gary, 475

Tennant, Emma, 368–72, 381, 542, 553; Burnt Diaries, 369–70, 373, 548

‘Thalidomide’ (SP; poem), 236

‘That Morning’ (TH; poem), 5, 18, 411, 414, 420

‘That Sunday Night’ (or ‘February 10th’; TH; poem), 214–15, 524

Thatcher, Denis, 426

Thatcher, Margaret, 418, 425–6, 482

Thomas, Dylan, 74, 85, 88, 125–6, 127, 146, 180; Under Milk Wood (play), 134; ‘Do not go gentle into that good night’ (poem), 541

Thomas, Edward, 40, 145, 164

Thomas the Rhymer, 543

Thomas, Richard, 383–4, 400

Thomas, Trevor: Sylvia Plath: Last Encounters, 442

‘Thought-Fox, The’ (TH; poem), 75, 94, 137–8, 145, 199, 271, 273, 362, 409

Three Books (TH; poems), 395–6, 411, 429, 489

Thribb, E.J. (fictional poet), 14

‘Thrushes’ (TH; poem), 145, 163–4

Thwaite, Anthony, 251

Tibbles, Maurice, 402

Time magazine, 240

Times, The, 503–4

Times Literary Supplement, 166, 308

Timmy the Tug (TH and Jim Downer; children’s book), 111

Todmorden: Hughes family moves to, 65, 73

Tolstoy, Leo, 477

Tomalin, Claire (née Delavenay), 78

Tomalin, Nicholas, 78

Top Withens, Yorkshire (‘Wuthering Heights’), 45, 123, 392–3, 397, 400, 536

Tormey, Pat, 276

Toronto, 368

Torridge Action Group, 410

Townshend, Pete, 490, 497

‘Tragic Equation in The Two Noble Kinsmen, The’ (TH; study), 471–2

Trask, Spencer and Katrina, 154

Trentham, Barbara, 364

Trevor, William, 188

‘Trial’ (TH; unpublished poem), 11, 442–7

tricksters: in folk tradition, 289

Tsvetaeva, Marina, 369

Turgenev, Ivan: First Love, 228

Turner, David, 256

Two of a Kind: Poets in Partnership (interview), 172

‘Two photographs of Top Withens’ (TH; poem), 397

‘Two Views of Withens’ (SP; poem), 123

‘Two Wise Generals’ (TH; poem), 102

Tynan, Kenneth, 257

‘Under High Wood’ (TH; poem), 428

Under the North Star (TH; children’s poems), 413–14

Ungaretti, Giuseppe, 252

‘Unicorn, The’ (TH; poem), 487

United States of America: TH’s first impressions of, 129–30; TH and SP travel in, 149–54; TH’s campus readings in, 302

University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 138–42

Valéry, Paul, 320

Vallon, Annette, 520

Vanderbilt, Gloria, 227

Varèse, Edgar, 155

Vasco (TH; play/opera), 256

Viaduct Theatre, Halifax, 533

Victoria, Lake (Africa), 405

Vienna University, 246

‘View of a Pig’ (TH; poem), 271, 273

Viking Press (New York), 326, 387

Virgil (Publius Virgilius Maro), 13–14

‘Visit’ (TH; poem), 519

‘Voyage, The’ (TH; poem), 145

Wagner, Richard, 481; Tristan und Isolde, 402

Wagner-Martin, Linda W.: A Biography of Sylvia Plath, 440

Wain, John, 191

‘Walt’ (TH; poem), 428

Wanamaker, Sam, 544

Waterlog (magazine), 539

Watkinson (headmaster), 55

Watling, Vicky (née Bottomley; TH’s cousin), 184, 213

Waugh, Evelyn, 70, 488, 509

‘Waving Goodbye’ (TH; poem), 341

Wedekind, Frank: Spring Awakening, 495, 497–9

Weiss, Peter: Marat/Sade, 255

Weissbort, Danny, 85–6, 99, 147, 233, 252, 283, 299, 430, 476

Wells, H.G.: The War of the Worlds, 262

Welsford, Enid, 98

Wesker, Arnold, 229; Roots, 168

Westminster Abbey: Poets’ Corner, 5

Wevill, Alexandra Tatiana Elise (Shura; TH’s daughter): birth and babyhood, 240, 242, 245–6; and TH’s relations with Assia, 265–6; in Germany with TH and Assia, 270; death, 274–5, 277, 408, 455–6, 459; Crow dedicated to memory, 286, 331, 343; in TH poems, 450, 456; in TH’s Capriccio, 450

Wevill, Assia (née Gutmann): TH’s relations with, 4, 188, 190–1, 196–7, 200, 203, 209–10, 214, 220–4, 225–6, 231, 242, 248, 265, 272, 296; depressive episodes, 27, 271; beauty, 185, 253; visits TH and SP in Devon, 185–6; TH calls on, 190; Spanish holiday with TH, 193, 203; marriage relations, 203, 205, 220–1; reads SP’s journal and unfinished novel, 220, 247; abortion, 221; Aunt Hilda’s aversion to, 223; economical with expenditure, 223; hostility to Olwyn, 223; miscarriage, 225; writing, 228; child by TH (Shura), 240, 242; accompanies TH to Spoleto Festival, 242–3; illustrations, 242; in Ireland with TH, 245; leaves David and lives with TH, 245, 247; TH’s parents dislike, 246–7, 253; makes will, 247, 266; provides for Shura’s future, 247; returns to London, 255–6; reconciled with Olwyn, 256; assists at rehearsals of Oedipus, 257; dislikes production of Seneca’s Oedipus, 260; Amichai translations published, 269; visits Germany with TH, 269–70; visits Dublin with TH, 271; and TH’s television recording in Manchester, 272–3; househunting in North with TH, 273–4, 286; divorce from David finalised, 274; suicide and cremation, 274–6, 278–9, 339–40, 342, 408, 459, 514; Crow dedicated to memory, 286, 331, 343; Alvarez and, 315–16; in TH’s Orts, 342; Robin Morgan cites, 347–8; initial branded on Nick’s jaguar sculpture, 449–50; in TH’s Capriccio, 450–2, 522; and TH’s ‘Sacrifice’, 450; Jewishness, 452; and TH’s ‘A’ poems, 452–6; TH’s poetry sequence on, 453–4; TH’s confessional poems on, 496, 507

Wevill, David, 185–6, 188, 190, 194, 203, 205, 220–1, 231, 242, 274, 316

What is the Truth? (TH; children’s book), 414, 558

‘Where the Mothers’ (TH; poem), 391

Whitbread Prize: awarded to TH, 506, 529

Whitby, 169

White, Eric, 206

White, Tony, 302

Whitman, Walt, 334

Wholey, Alice (née Wilson), 54–5, 58

Wholey, Edna, 58–9, 62, 72

Wholey, John, 57–8

Wicker Man, The (film), 333

Wild Steelhead and Salmon (fishing magazine), 409

Wilde, Oscar, 457, 462, 468, 472

‘Wilfred Owen’s Photographs’ (TH; poem), 164

William, Prince, 419, 484

Williams, Tennessee, 361

Williams, William Carlos, 101, 147

Williamson, Henry: TH delivers memorial address, 50; Fascist sympathies, 52; Boddy admires, 85; The Patriot’s Progress, 51; Tarka the Otter, 49–51, 486

Wilson, Harold, 230, 464

‘Wind’ (TH; poem), 137, 160, 273

Winter Pollen: Occasional Prose (TH; critical writings), 491

Winter Trees (SP; poems), 346

‘Wintering’ (SP; poem), 237

Winters, Yvor, 8

‘Wisdom Book’ (TH; unfinished), 17

With Fairest Flowers while Summer Lasts (TH; US publication of A Choice of Shakespeare’s Verse), 461, 464

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 69

‘Wodwo’ (TH; poem), 273

Wodwo (TH; poetry/story collection): writing, 201; published, 248, 288; explained, 249–51, 272, 376; reviewed, 251; US publication, 256; TH’s self in, 332

Wolfwatching (TH; collection), 189, 396, 428–9

‘Woman with Such High Heels She Looked Dangerous, The’ (TH; poem), 79

‘Woman Unconscious, A’ (TH; poem), 165

Woolf, Virginia, 131, 457, 462, 468, 472

‘Words’ (SP; poem), 220

‘Words heard, by accident, over the phone’ (SP; poem), 188

Wordsworth, Dorothy, 273, 404, 492, 522

Wordsworth, William: on poetry, 12; TH likened to, 13; memorable lines, 15; and memory, 24–5, 520–1; and individual experience, 43–5; Fisher admires, 54; TH sees grave, 305; TH praises, 404; close relations with Dorothy, 492; and Annette Vallon, 520; poetic voice, 522; ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge’ (sonnet), 520–1, 525; ‘Lucy’, 198, 395; The Prelude, 109, 404, 417, 507, 515, 517–18, 521, 564; ‘A slumber did my spirit seal’, 393; ‘Tintern Abbey’, 563

‘Working Definition of Mythic, A’ (TH; draft), 473

World Poets Festival, Second (Dhaka, 1989), 375–6

World War I, TH’s poems on, 428–9, 516

World War II, 48–9, 516

Worth, Irene, 257, 277

Wound, The (TH; radio play), 248, 332

‘Wound, The’ (TH; story), 40, 233

Wright, Carolyne, 377–8

Wright, Claudia, 362

Wright, Michael, 407

Writers on Themselves (BBC radio series), 24

Wuthering Heights (fictional location) see Top Withens

‘Wuthering Heights’ (SP; poem), 123, 393

Wyatt-Brown, Bert, 98–9

Yaddo (artists’ community), New York state, 148, 154–7, 159, 216, 354, 508

Yeats, William Butler, 20, 54, 67, 91–2, 123–4, 192, 202; ‘Among School Children’, 475

Yellowstone National Park (USA), 150–1

Yevtushenko, Yevgeny, 243, 369

York, Susanna, 477

‘You Claw the Door’ (earlier ‘Hathershelf’; TH; poem), 392–5

‘You Hated Spain’ (TH; poem), 189, 414, 515

Young Men’s and Young Women’s Hebrew Association of New York (YMYWHA), 125

Your Environment (magazine), 298

‘You’re’ (SP; poem), 387

Zabel, Morton, 148