Ted Hughes married Sylvia Plath in 1956, at the outset of their brilliant careers. Plath's suicide six and a half years later, for which many held Hughes accountable, changed his life, his closest relationships, his standing in the literary world, and the style and substance of his verse. In this stunning new biography of their marriage, Diane Middlebrook presents a portrait of Hughes as a man, as a poet, and as a husband haunted — and nourished — his entire life by the aftermath of his first marriage.

Drawing on a trove of newly available papers Middlebrook presents Hughes as a complicated, conflicted figure: sexually magnetic, fiercely ambitious, immensely caring, and shrewd in business. She argues that Plath's suicide, though it devastated Hughes and made him vulnerable to the savage attacks of Plath's growing readership, ultimately gave him his true subject: how marriages fail and how men fail in marriage.

Writing with the penetrating insight and lucid sympathy that informed her previous bestselling biographies, Middlebrook rises to the multiple challenges presented by this highly fraught, deeply controversial subject. Her Husband is a triumph of the biographer's art and craft.

"Sympathetic but resolutely unsentimental...intelligent, sensitive, at times harrowing." Joyce Carol Oates, The Washington Post Book World

"The author makes insightful comments about each poet's writing, about their individual artistic growth, and about their collaborations....Some somber new brushstrokes darken an already dismal painting." Kirkus Reviews

"By opening up their poetic life, she finds what drew them together and what, in turn, keeps readers fascinated with them. Her impartiality to this polarizing subject is refreshing." Library Journal

"Joining the recent spate of books about Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath, all of which concern the sources of their poetry and their dysfunctional marriage, Middlebrook's is sure to be the gold standard. Astutely reasoned, fluidly written and developed with psychological acuity, the work is a sympathetically balanced assessment of two lives that flamed brightly with the incandescent fire of creative genius." Publishers Weekly

"[O]ne would be tempted to groan at this latest exhumation — if only it weren't so transfixing a tale." The New York Times Book Review

In this stunning new biography of the marriage of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, Middlebrook presents a portrait of Hughes as a man, as a poet, and as a husband haunted--and nourished--his entire life by the aftermath of his first marriage.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [345]-350) and index.

Diane Middlebrook is the author of two highly praised, bestselling biographies, Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton and Anne Sexton: A Biography, which was a National Book Award and was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist.

Acknowledgments xi

List of Illustrations xiii

Introduction: Becoming Her Husband xv

chapter one: Meeting (1956) 1

Ted Huge 5

Flashy American 11

The "Diary I" 15

chapter two: Romance (1956) 24

The White Goddess: "Song" 30

Plath's Idyll 35

"To Ariadne, Deserted by Theseus" 44

chapter three: His Family (1956) 50

Leo 51

William Henry Hughes (1894 &1981) 58

Edith Farrar Hughes (1898 &1969) 64

Gerald Hughes (1920 &) 70

chapter four: Struggling (1956 &1963) 82

Rabbit Stew 86

Silent Strangers 91

Complicated Animals 95

Earth Mother 104

The Luxury of Solitude 106

chapter five: Prospering (1957 &1963) 115

Money 116

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman 120

Literary London 130

Homemaking 140

Literary Lion 146

Fertility 152

chapter six: Separating (1962 &) 159

"The Rabbit Catcher" 166

He Said, She Said 176

chapter seven: Parting (1962 &1963) 183

Plath Turns Thirty: Ariel 184

"Daddy" 186

London on Her Own 193

Doubletake 197

chapter eight: Husbandry (1963 &1998) 212

Hughes's Tribe 221

Hughes's Ariel 225

The Wodwo and the Crow 228

Stewardship 235

chapter nine: Curing Himself (1967 &1998) 242

"Knot of Obsessions" 244

Sinking into Folk-Tale 254

From "Relic Husband" to "Her Husband" 258

chapter ten: The Magical Dead (1984 &1998) 265

Poet of England 266

The Drama of Completion 268

coda: Naked (1998 &) 286

Sources and Notes 289

Bibliography 345

Index 351