First edition, first impression, the poet Gavin Ewart's copy, with his ownership inscription on the front free endpaper. This is Plath's first posthumous poetry collection, her second overall, published two years after her death. Plath believed her Ariel poems to be the best she had produced and accurately predicted to her mother that "they will make my name" (Letters, p. 468). The collection was edited by Ted Hughes, who slightly altered Plath's ordering of the poems, omitted 13 pieces, and added another ten. According to Frieda Hughes, her father "wished to give the book a broader perspective in order to make it more acceptable to readers, rather than alienate them" (Ariel: The Restored Edition, 2007, p. xvi). While Ted Hughes's decisions have been the subject of criticism, he was successful in creating out of Ariel Plath's most enduring poetry book, the one which first gained her significant literary recognition and precipitated her rise to fame among scholars and cult followers alike. Ewart (1916-1995), a Cambridge alumni like Plath, contributed to Grigson's New Verse at the age of 17 and, after an early blaze, served in the Second World War, and fell silent for over 20 years. He rejoined the literary circuit in 1964, one year prior to the publication Ariel, and it was "partly through the inspiration of meeting some younger fellow poets. that Ewart began to write again, and with new vigour" (Thwaite). Within the next quarter-century, Ewart published "over a dozen substantial new books of poetry, along with many small pamphlets, and was editor of half a dozen anthologies" (ibid.) Tabor A5a. Sylvia Plath, Letters Home: Correspondence, 1950-1963, 1975; Anthony Thwaite, "Obituary: Gavin Ewart", The Independent, 24 Oct. 1995. Octavo. Original red cloth, spine lettered in gilt. With dust jacket. A bright, square copy, a few marks to spine, tiny crease to outer margin of first 13 pages, else fine, in the fresh jacket, spine panel sunned with a few nicks and creases to ends, tips lightly rubbed, else sharp.
