8vo. 250pp. Original publisher's orange cloth boards lettered in silver, with the unclipped bright orange dustwrapper. Spine of wrapper slightly sunned with a few other marks or small nicks, internally bright and clean, with some annotations to Ted Hughes' introduction and postscript in the hand of Olwyn Hughes. From the estate of Olwyn Hughes, recently dispersed. while much of her library was damaged as the result of an errant cigarette dropped by Olwyn down the back of her sofa - causing a serious fire - this copy has escaped – apart from a slight smoke odour - almost entirely unscathed.

The first edition, with annotations, of a posthumous collection of Sylvia Plath's (1932-1963) prose writing, compiled by her estranged husband Ted Hughes some fourteen years after her death. Presented in three parts; thirteen completed short stories, six further stories, and four diary excerpts.

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 help her brother, Ted Hughes, raise his young children, eventually taking 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.