"The Woman Who Made Language Sing"
SEXTON, Anne. 45 Mercy Street. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1976.
8vo. Original yellow card wrappers; pp. [vi], 114, [2], very minimal stain on front wrapper; otherwise fine.
Uncorrected proof copy of the first edition.
Anne Sexton was one of the most noted poets of mid-20th century America. Her reverd career blossomed from unexpected roots when her therapist suggested she write in order to regain mental stability. Embarking on this creative and therapeutic journey through participating in writing groups in Boston, she became acquainted with the likes of Sylvia Plath and Robert Lowell. Her first book, To Bedlam and Part Way Back (1960) relayed her experiences of mental volatility as she suffered from bipolar disorder and she was praised for her confessional tone. Within 12 years of the writing of her first sonnet, she was an accoladed Pulitzer Prize winner. As writer Erica Jong writes of the fascinating autobiographical potential to Sexton's verse "She is an important poet not only because of her courage in dealing with previously forbidden subjects, but because she can make the language sing".
45 Mercy Street is a posthumous work, published two years after her suicide and relays the events of her life. Of 45 Mercy Street she supposedly remarked "Part of 45 Mercy Street is still too personal to publish for sometime".
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