Poet’s widow angrily denies Sylvia Plath’s claims of domestic abuse

ALLEGATIONS MADE by Sylvia Plath that Ted Hughes physically abused her days before she miscarried have been dismissed being as “absurd as they are shocking” by his estate.

A rebuttal issued on behalf of the late poet laureate’s widow, Carol Hughes, criticised the deci- sion to reveal details in letters reportedly sent by Plath to her psychiatrist in which she also alleged her husband wanted her dead.

According to The Guardian the two unseen letters written to Dr Ruth Barnhouse between February 18 1960 and February 4 1963, a week before Plath died, are the only surviving uncensored account of the American author’s final months.

Responding to the report, the Ted Hughes Estate said: “The claims allegedly made by Sylvia Plath in unpublished letters to her former psychiatrist, suggesting that she was beaten by her husband, Ted Hughes, days before she miscarried their second child are as absurd as they are shocking to anyone who knew Ted well.

“Private correspondence between patient and psychiatrist is surely one of the most confidential imaginable and, in this case, these alleged claims were from someone who was in deep emotional pain due to the apparent disintegration of her marriage.”

The letters form part of a collection that emerged when an antiquarian put it up for sale for $875,000 (£695,000).

However the sale has been blocked by Smith College, the Massachusetts arts college where Plath studied in the 1950s, which filed a lawsuit claiming the letters were bequeathed to it by Dr Barnhouse after her death. Hughes, who was born in Mytholmroyd, was poet laureate from 1984 until his death in October 1998.