In the dozen years since his death there has been no great shortage of material on Ted Hughes. A substantial book‐length bibliography was published some years ago, subsequently updated in the year of his death (Sagar and Tabor, 1998), which laboriously tracks down his publications, most of which are still in print or easily obtainable. The BBC has dug out nearly five hours of broadcasts by him, now available on CD. In parallel with numerous other recordings, most of them still available, these make for a very substantial audio‐visual archive. A volume of his letters has appeared, together with a volume of Letters to Ted (Weissbort, 2002). There have been, by my count, at least ten full‐length books of criticism, commentary and biography on him, and there are countless more on Sylvia Plath discussing their relationship in inordinate detail. All this even before you start searching out journal articles. There are half‐a‐dozen websites devoted to him, including those run by the Ted Hughes Society (see www.thetedhughessociety.org), by the Elmet Trust (see www.theelmettrust.co.uk) and by the Centre for Ted Hughes Studies at Amory University (see www3.sympatico.ca/sylviapaul/hughes_archives.htm). In the face of this plethora of information it seems reasonable for a reviewer to start by questioning whether any further publications are necessary. I presume that the Cambridge University Press commissioning staff have their collective ear to the ground, and have judged that the English literature market will stand one more.
It is certainly true that there is some current interest in Hughes. He has reached the stage of being regularly set as reading for school examinations, partly I think because his writings specifically aimed at children lead easily into the shorter animal poems, which can have a bite‐sized appeal to adolescents. I have a suspicion that a large part of the continuing interest in both of them, however, is due to his marriage with Sylvia Plath and her subsequent suicide. I am left with the sneaking feeling that if they had both produced roughly the same volume and quality of work, but had never actually met, neither of them would be quite as well known as they currently are. A Jungian might argue (and Hughes, after all, was a very Jungian person) that all personal relationships consist of individuals constructing dramatic narratives about themselves and each other, but a relationship between two people both of whose entire vocations consisted of constructing dramatic narratives, and which ended in such a dramatic manner, is bound to stir up continuing interest. It is significant that one of the major biographical studies of Hughes is succinctly entitled Her Husband (Middlebrook, 2004)!
This book follows the standard pattern of the hundred or so existing Cambridge Companions to Literature (Albee to Zola – what an impressive list). A lengthy and interesting introduction by the editor brings out, inter alia, the fact that Hughes had never really read Ruskin. This surprised me – in so far as I had ever thought about it, I would have put Fors Clavigera up with Graves's White Goddess, Blake's Tyger, the Odyssey and King Lear as obvious influences. This is followed by an essay on the problems of writing a biography. An actual brief biography linked to the opening summary chronology might have been a useful addition to this, for student purposes. The relationship with Plath gets a chapter to itself of course, and there are thoughtful chapters on Hughes's use of animals, of myth, and of the Classics, on his miscellaneous prose writings, on his rather eccentric writings about Shakespeare (even the enthusiastic contributor here admits that Shakespeare and the Goddess of Complete Being “cannot be recommended to students as an introductory critical study”) and on his attitude to feminism. There is also a chapter on his ecological work – Hughes was an early campaigner against river pollution, initially from the narrow angle of a fly‐fisherman but eventually taking on a broader environmental approach as a key founder of the Association of Rivers Trusts. Finally there are chapters on Class, War and The Laureateship and on the prickly relationship between Hughes and his critics (but no separate chapter on his broadcasting – I would have thought that his radio work merited a discussion). Finally there is a guide to further reading, summarising and updating Sagar and Tabor, and a brief index which is adequate for its purpose, though I could not find the BBC in it.
It is notoriously difficult to predict which poets will continue to live in the public eye. Hughes is just entering the awkward period when he has been dead long enough to be old‐fashioned but not dead for long enough to have become a classic. One might, therefore, predict a dip in interest for the next couple of decades or so. On the other hand, he has currently found a secure place on the English literature curriculum so there is likely to be a regular demand from students for books like this. University libraries catering for relevant courses will obviously want to add it to stock. This book seems to me to be more approachable than most of the other books about Hughes currently on the market, and there is still some continuing general interest in him, so public libraries that already have access to an adequate range of Hughes's own writings, particularly the major volumes of poetry, and that do not already have an adequate range of books about him and/or about Sylvia Plath, can well be recommended to purchase it too. One of the contributors actually mentions a “decline in reader and scholarly interest in Hughes” in the USA in more recent years. Nevertheless, there is probably still enough general interest for American libraries to consider putting this alongside Her Husband.
