Virago classic non-fiction – serie

Since her suicide in 1963 at the age of 30, Sylvia Plath has become a strange icon. This book addresses why this is the case and what this tells us about the way culture picks out important writers. The author argues that without a concept of fantasy we can understand neither Plath's work nor what she has come to represent. She proposes that no writer demonstrates more forcefully than Plath the importance of inner psychic life for the wider sexual and political world. By the author of Sexuality in the Field of Vision.

'There never was anybody who had adventures as well as Miss Bird' SPECTATOR'Venture deep into the Colorado wilderness, and you will find her long-lasting legacy in the community of people choosing to live a life without limits' RUBY WAX, GUARDIAN 'This book is an unputdownable record of a truly astounding journey' DERVLA MURPHY, IRISH TIMESBorn in 1831, Isabella, daughter of a clergyman, set off alone to the Antipodes in 1872 'in search of health' and found she had embarked on a life of adventurous travel. A year later she took a solo trip from San Francisco to the Rocky Mountains. 'I dreamt of bears so vividly I woke with a furry death-hug at the my throat, but feeling quite refreshed.' The intrepid journeys of the indefatigable Miss Bird are relayed here in the delightful letters she wrote to her sister. They tell of 'truly grand' isolated wilderness and abundant wildlife, of small remote townships of her encounters with rattlesnakes, wolves and grizzly bears and her reactions to the volatile passions of the miners and pioneer settlers.