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Her Husband

Hughes and Plath, A Marriage

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Her Husband

By: Diane Middlebrook
Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne
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About this listen

 Ted Hughes married Sylvia Plath in 1956, at the outset of their brilliant careers. Plath's suicide six-and-a-half years later, for which many held Hughes accountable, changed his life, his closest relationships, his standing in the literary world, and brought new significance to his poetry.

Middlebrook presents a portrait of Hughes as a man, as a poet, and as a husband haunted, and nourished, his entire life by the aftermath of his first marriage. How marriages fail and how men fail in marriages is one of the book's central themes.

©2003 Diane Middlebrook (P)2003 Blackstone Audiobooks Art & Literature Authors European Literary History & Criticism Marriage & Long-Term Partnerships Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Relationships United States World Literature

Critic reviews

"Middlebrook's [book] is sure to be the gold standard. Astutely reasoned, fluidly written and developed with psychological acuity, the work is a sympathetically balanced assessment of two lives that flamed brightly with the incandescent fire of creative genius." (Publishers Weekly)
"The most balanced, most literary and interpretatively astute, and best-written analysis yet of the saga of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes." (Booklist)
"Sympathetic but resolutely unsentimental....intelligent, sensitive, at times harrowing." (Joyce Carol Oates, Washington Post Book World)
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This book is a treasure of information about both Plath and Hughes and their famous marriage but it is also a wonderful book to help understand their poetry even more, the backgrounds behind the poems is explained very well and it is a very balanced account of both of their lives, which can be difficult to find with so many anti-Hughes books out there!

Wonderful

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I’ve read so many books on the subject of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes but this is my favourite and it also contains far more details on their work and work practices than others in the genre that focus more on their difficult relationship. Don’t read this if you are looking for scandal or juicy details but if you really want to understand their work it’s fascinating.

My favourite book on the subject

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I enjoyed the author’s balanced, laying out her material. Several interesting personal viewpoints are explored.
Ms Middlebrook’s work offers also very good glimpses into the exciting literary world of the mid - late 20th century, couldn’t turn it off. ;)

Dispassionate and

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Having read some Ted Hughes poems and some Silvia Plath poems and The Bell Jar. I am now reading Birthday Letters by Ted Hughes, and this biography helps bring it all together. In my view, this is well written and well narrated.

Brilliant biography

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Fascinating to begin to understand the dynamics between these two headstrong forces of nature. Hughs and Plath are locked together in their riotous poetic myth-making.

An Education

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I already knew the story of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath but still gained some insights. My issue was the terrible narrator with her American non aspirant pronunciation of Hughes as 'Ughes. Drove me crazy. Some other British place names were also mispronounced. I really don't understand that the audiobook editor is doing if they are t checking things are correctly pronounced. Ruined the book for me sadly. Read it instead.

Unfortunately ruined by narrator

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