A Matter of Facts

Although I enjoyed Jamie Stiehm’s article on Hampstead, I found it puzzling that she should ask if Sylvia Plath had been aware that poet W. B. Yeats had once also been a resident of Primrose Hill.

According to “Letters Home,” a collection of correspondence primarily from Plath to her mother, not only was she very much aware of Yeats’ residency in Hampstead, but she also lived in a former Yeats home. “Letters Home” gives her account of the struggle she went through in order to acquire a coveted flat in Yeats’ house. In a letter dated Dec. 14, 1962, just two months before her tragic suicide, she was able to write in triumph, “Well, here I am! Safely in Yeats’ house! And I can truly say that I have never been so happy in my life!”

DIANE STANISLAW

Lahaina, Hawaii