The colossus by PLATH, Sylvia - 1967

London: Faber & Faber, 1967. 88pp. Original publisher's salmon cloth boards, lettered in silver, with the unclipped dustwrapper. Wrapper a little shelf-worn and marked. Internally bright and clean, boards remain sharp. From the estate of Olwyn Hughes, recently dispersed, without indication of such; while much of her library suffered smoke damage after an errant cigarette dropped by Olwyn down the back of her sofa caused a serious fire, this copy - for smoke odour - is relatively unscathed. The second edition of Sylvia Plath's (1932-1963) debut poetry collection, the only published during her lifetime, republished by Faber after her death at the behest of her estranged husband Ted Hughes – to whom the collected was dedicated. Olwyn Hughes (1928-2016) was a translator, agent and literary executor who had worked in Paris for NATO, Martonplay, and King Peter II of Yugoslavia, among others. After the death of her sister-in-law Sylvia Plath, she returned to England to assist her brother, Ted Hughes, raise his young children, though also took over the management of both his career and Plath's literary estate. While she did have some other clients as a literary agent, including Jean Rhys, much of the rest of her life was dedicated to preserving - and defending - both Plath and Hughes. . Second edition. 8vo.