Lover of Unreason

Assia Wevill, Sylvia Plath's Rival and Ted Hughes' Doomed Love

Contributors

By Yehuda Koren

By Eilat Negev

On Sale
Jan 29, 2008
Page Count
328 pages
Publisher
Da Capo Press
ISBN-13
9780786721054

The failure of the marriage between Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes has always been considered from one of two conflicting viewpoints: hers or his. Missing for more than four decades has been a third perspective on the events that brought their marriage to its ill-fated end, the story of another — the other — woman: Hughes’ mistress Assia Wevill. Like Plath before her, Assia shared her life with Hughes for seven years, until she took her own life and that of their daughter at the age of forty-two, in a manner that nearly replicated Plath’s suicide six years earlier. Drawing on previously unavailable documents and private papers, including Assia’s diaries and her intimate correspondence with Hughes, this book shows the vital influence Assia exerted on the poet and his work, and the uneasy life they shared under the long shadow of Plath. A Lover of Unreason is the first-ever full-length biography of Assia Wevill. It casts a keen light, and explores the emergence of a singular twentieth-century woman. Three-times divorcé career woman, mistress, and single mother, Assia Wevill openly defied the conventions of a censorious pre-feminist Britain and mesmerized men and women alike with her quick-mind and exotic beauty.

Formats and Prices

Price

$21.99

Price

$28.99 CAD

Format

Trade Paperback

Format:

Trade Paperback $21.99 $28.99 CAD

Yehuda Koren

About the Author

Yehuda Koren, a freelance journalist for the British, Israeli, and German press, and Eilat Negev, the senior literary correspondent for Yedioth Achronoth, previously co-authored In Our Hearts We Were Giants. Yehuda Koren, a freelance journalist for the British, Israeli, and German press, and Eilat Negev, the senior literary correspondent for Yedioth Achronoth, previously co-authored In Our Hearts We Were Giants.

Learn more about this author