1940 · New York
by [Plath, Sylvia]; Snedeker, Caroline Dale
New York: Doubleday, Doran & Co., Inc, 1940. Very good plus.. Sylvia Plath's childhood copy of this YA novel - signed twice by Plath, with an original drawing by her and her bookplate laid in - the almost-too-apt story of a young Roman girl exiled to the soggy shores of Britain and burdened with a literal-minded mother named Aurelia. On February 21, 1944, a middle-school-aged Plath visited Wellesley's Hathaway House Bookshop and purchased a copy of Caroline Dale Snedeker's THE WHITE ISLE. Snedeker was the author of several popular historical novels set in the ancient world, writing a few years before Rosemary Sutcliffe and possessing a similar appeal; Plath read this novel a month after writing a school paper on "Roman People Places and Things" (Rollyson). The heroine Lavinia, like Plath, is barely 13 and the daughter of an "Aurelia" - the same name as Plath's mother, which Plath has carefully underlined three times in the book. Plath apparently enjoyed the book beyond these parallels; according to biographer Clark, she "read several books by Caroline Snedeker" (77) that summer. Her affinity for the book is further suggested by her two ownership inscriptions over two years (including one skillfully penned within the sketch of a tree very similar to the one that stood before the bookshop where she bought the book), as well as the time and effort she took to carefully paste parts of the jacket into the book itself.
Further, this novel appears to have had a continued influence beyond Plath's adolescent years. Lavinia, like Plath, leaves her home for cold, dark Britannia, destined to marry a native Briton in a land full of snow and frost and wood spirits, "far away - on the very edge of the world," where "in one dark and terrible night the sea would rise and claim Lyonesse for its own. Down, down it would sink to be seen no more. It would become the Lost Land there on the ocean floor" (Snedeker). A place about which Plath would later title a poem ("Lyonesse"), writing: "No use whistling for Lyonesse! / Sea-cold, sea-cold it certainly is."
A moving, evocative, and apparently influential memento from the life and career of one of the 20th century's greatest and most enduring poets. Original silver-stamped blue cloth. Lacking the dust jacket. Blue topstain. Pictorial endpapers. Black and white illustrations by Fritz Kredel. 271, [1] pages. Bookplate of Sylvia Plath laid in. "Property of Sylvia Plath / 1945" in pen on front free endpaper, with small pen drawing of a tree surrounding. Small bookseller label from Hathaway House Book Shop mounted to half title. Signed "Sylvia Plath - 1944" in pen to page [iii], with cut-out of front dust jacket flap pasted below. Cut-out dust jacket illustration of a sailing ship mounted on title page verso and facing page. Plath's underlining to two pages (2 and 41). Light edgewear and bumping. (Inventory #: 51497)
Further, this novel appears to have had a continued influence beyond Plath's adolescent years. Lavinia, like Plath, leaves her home for cold, dark Britannia, destined to marry a native Briton in a land full of snow and frost and wood spirits, "far away - on the very edge of the world," where "in one dark and terrible night the sea would rise and claim Lyonesse for its own. Down, down it would sink to be seen no more. It would become the Lost Land there on the ocean floor" (Snedeker). A place about which Plath would later title a poem ("Lyonesse"), writing: "No use whistling for Lyonesse! / Sea-cold, sea-cold it certainly is."
A moving, evocative, and apparently influential memento from the life and career of one of the 20th century's greatest and most enduring poets. Original silver-stamped blue cloth. Lacking the dust jacket. Blue topstain. Pictorial endpapers. Black and white illustrations by Fritz Kredel. 271, [1] pages. Bookplate of Sylvia Plath laid in. "Property of Sylvia Plath / 1945" in pen on front free endpaper, with small pen drawing of a tree surrounding. Small bookseller label from Hathaway House Book Shop mounted to half title. Signed "Sylvia Plath - 1944" in pen to page [iii], with cut-out of front dust jacket flap pasted below. Cut-out dust jacket illustration of a sailing ship mounted on title page verso and facing page. Plath's underlining to two pages (2 and 41). Light edgewear and bumping. (Inventory #: 51497)