Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes are married in London. |
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One of the most notorious literary love stories began on February 25th, 1956, at a launch party for the literary magazine St. Botolph’s Review, where two young poets—23-year-old Sylvia Plath and 25-year-old Ted Hughes—met for the first time. They flirted; she bit his cheek; they both went home and wrote poems about it. Less than four months later, on Monday, June 18th, 1956, Plath wrote to her brother Warren: |
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You better stop what you are doing and be very quiet and sit down with a tall glass of cool lager and be ready to keep a huge and miraculous secret: your sister, as of 1:30 p.m. June 16th in London at the 250 year old church of St. George the Martyr is now a married woman! Mrs. Sylvia Hughes, Mrs. Ted Hughes, Mrs. Edward James Hughes, Mrs. E. J. Hughes (wife of the internationally-known poet and genius): take your pick. It is really true. And it is a dead secret between you and mummy and Ted and me. Because I am going to have another wedding at the Unitarian Church in Wellesley next June with you (I hope, if you’re willing) as Ted’s best man, and Frankie giving me away, and a huge reception for all our friends and relations who will be informed by mother this fall that Ted and I are engaged. |
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All the secrecy was because she was concerned that the marriage would put her Fulbright scholarship in jeopardy (“the Victorian virgins wouldn’t see how I could concentrate with being to such a handsome virile man,” she wrote). She promised to tell Warren in person more details about “our struggle to get a license, (from the Archbishop of Canterbury, no less), searching for the parish church where Ted belonged & had, by law, to be married, spotting a priest on the street, Ted pointing: ‘That’s him!’ following him home & finding he was the right one.”
As for the actual day of the wedding (the date chosen as an homage to James Joyce, of course):
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We rushed about London, buying dear Ted shoes & trousers, two gold wedding rings (I never wanted an engagement ring) with the last of our money, and mummy supplying a lovely pink knitted suit dress she brought (intuitively never having worn) and me in that & a pink hair ribbon and a pink rose from Ted, standing with rain pouring outside in the dim little church, saying the most beautiful words in the world as our vows, with the curate as second witness and the dear Reverend, an old, bright-eyed man (who lives right opposite Charles Dickens’ house!) kissing my cheek, and the tears just falling down from my eyes like rain I was so happy with my dear lovely Ted.
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We came together in that church of the chimney sweeps with nothing but love & hope & our own selves: Ted in his old black corduroy jacket & me in mother’s gift of a pink knit dress. Pink rose & black tie. An empty church in watery yellow-gray light of rainy London. Outside, the crowd of thick-ankled tweed-coated mothers & pale, jabbering children waiting for the bus to take them on a church outing to the Zoo. |
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If only the story had a happier ending.
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