Birthday Letters Faber and Faber ( 05 April, 1999 ) Book Our Price : £ 6.99 List Price : £ 9.99 You save £3 (30% off) Prices subject to change. usually dispatched within 24 hours.

A BEAUTIFUL BOOK

Since Sylvia Plaths suicide in 1963, Ted Hughes has been unfairly demonized by Plaths largely feminist following as a domineering unfaithful bully who allegedly drove his wife over the edge. To his credit, Hughes had always kept a dignified distance from his detractors. He finally broke his silence shortly before his own death in 1998 with this beautiful collection of poems which appear in chronological order as letters of reminiscence about their life together, written in reply to Plaths published diary account of their marriage. You only have to read Birthday Letters in conjunction with the Journals of Sylvia Plath to realise how deeply Ted Hughes loved and missed his first wife. Touching and heartbreakingly sad, and very moving.

Sad, disturbing but brilliant

Birthday letters is a book which is haunting. Ted Hughess mind is exposed in way which makes every human being, who reads these poems, relate to the mental torment and anguish he has endured over the subsequent period of 25 years in which Birthday Letters was composed. When I read birthday letters I felt as though I was intruding into personal moments in Hughess life. The book of course is very onesided but it shows the fundamental nature of human beings and how we change our innermost feelings such as guilt, which torment us, into that of anger and even hate so that we can cope with our minds and memories which we can not escape.

History grinds itself into oblivion!

This is, by everyone elses account, a tremendously moving tribute to the memory of Plath. However, it seems to me rather more like an attempt to prove the critics wrong, and take away the blame from Hughes. We read poem after poem of beautiful prose and moving occasion, yet the subtext is constantly asking us to believe that Plath was depressed period, that Hughes was supportive period, and ultimately, that Plaths suicide was in no way related to his Affair. "She never once invited, never tempted. / And I never stirred a finger beyond / sisterly comforting. ..." ----FIDELITY