Your readers will by now be bored senseless by the assertions and counter-assertions provoked by my biography of Ted Hughes. I had intended to write nothing further in public, and simply to let readers finish the book and make up their own minds. But William Wootten’s article about Sylvia Plath and Al Alvarez (Questions surround account of Plath and Alvarez liaison in new Ted Hughes biography, 22 October) casts aspersions on the integrity of my principal informant, Ted Hughes’s devoted sister, Olwyn.
Wootten has seen one half of her correspondence with Mr Alvarez, now in the British Library. As I say in my book, this makes reference to Sylvia Plath’s characteristically witty phrase in her last journal (without actually quoting it).
Olwyn Hughes was generous enough to share with me the content of the other half of the correspondence and her invaluable account of Plath’s journal (which was subsequently destroyed). There is no reason to doubt Sylvia Plath’s word.
The full story will become clear when certain other material that has been withheld for reasons of privacy can eventually be revealed. I am always happy for interested parties to consult me privately about my sources, especially if they do so before making assertions in the press.
Jonathan Bate
Author, Ted Hughes: The Unauthorised Life
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