Lost, not lost …

… Sylvia Plath’s New Story Mary Ventura Shows New Sides to Her. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

The real story is, like Plath’s own, more complicated. Originally written in 1952 for a class assignment at Smith College, “Mary Ventura” wasn’t widely known outside scholarly circles before Faber and Faber published it in the UK earlier this month. Plath had revised the piece despite discouraging comments from her professor, then sent it to her mother to retype and submit to Mademoiselle magazine — which rejected it promptly. Eventually, it went into her archives — not as lost riches but as an open secret, complete with a treasure map in the form of a finding aid.