Gail Crowther Books In Order

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Gail Crowther is a researcher, academic and author.

She has worked on and continues to work on a variety of projects both solo and collaborative. The work that she is doing also takes a closer look at the idea of the living archive, which are ideas that are connected to place importance, as well as Hollywood’s Golden Age.

Gail is known for writing the dual biography titled Three-Martini Afternoons at the Ritz, which delves into the lives and the combined social rebellion of Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath. The book was published by Simon & Schuster and was first made available for readers to enjoy in 2021.

Her first book to be published was a singular biography co-written with Elizabeth Sigmund titled Sylvia Plath in Devon: A Year’s Turning. It came out in 2014 from Fonthill Media. She has also published quite a bit on Plath in different books and journals, and is intimately familiar with the artist and her life. She would go on to write a solo book titled The Haunted Reader and Sylvia Plath, before teaming up to co-author yet another book on Plath, this time titled These Ghostly Archives: The Unearthing of Sylvia Plath.

Crowther has also given lectures on the topics of religion, sociology, society and culture. She is conducting research and these extend to archival studies as well as feminist life writing.

Sylvia Plath in Devon: A Year’s Turning is an early book written by Gail Crowther and Elizabeth Sigmund. This is a partial memoir and partial biography that hones in on Sylvia Plath and the fifteen months that she was residing in North Tawton, Devon.

The time period was from September of 1961 to December of 1962. It was a great time in Plath’s life as she was able to complete proofs for The Bell Jar, her first book. Then in the fall of 1962 she came out with the majority of her Ariel poems.

Elizabeth Sigmund is also featured, giving details of the year of the friendship that she formed with Plath. This included the time that they first met to drink tea to going to various music concerts together.

The author goes into the effect that Sylvia’s personal life at home had on her work creatively during this period. She also pulls from letters that have been unpublished and previously unseen resources and documents from various archives located in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

What comes out is a look at Plath as she becomes more comfortable and settles down more into the comfort of her town life. She makes new friendships while there, has the momentous occasion of giving birth and witnessing the arrival of her second child into the world, putting up decorations in her new home, and coming up with some of the most celebrated, beautiful and powerful poetry to be published in the twentieth century.

The Haunted Reader and Sylvia Plath is the first book to come out on Plath written solely by Gail Crowther. If you love Sylvia Plath or learning about authors more or just enjoy some good nonfiction, this is a great book for you!

This takes its own approach to the studies of Sylvia Plath, which focuses on her readers more than Sylvia the person. It works from the premise that the author and poet was a cultural figure and highly visible, and it goes into why readers of her work became such fans and so attached, exploring why her following was so large and devoted.

The book also looks into the things about Sylvia Plath that are able to attract people as well as how once they are pulled in and how the fandom manifests itself. It is based on research done by the author, who has worked to collect accounts and stories from Plath readers and looks into areas such as their first encounter with the work of Plath, things that they feel that they have in common with her, journeys that they make to places of significance to her and where she lived, and interest in objects once owned by the artist.

It is a completely original study and detailing of not only the life of an artist but of her impact on the world and why her work is so celebrated by fans and scholars and still an actively relevant part of the literary world today that continues to have impact and importance.