One of only 160 copies
PLATH, Sylvia. A Day in June. Ely. Embers Press. 1981.

8vo.; publisher’s textured light blue, white-veined, paper wrappers with French flaps, handmade in the Auvergne by Richard de Bas, lettered in light grey and blue to upper cover and with the emblem of the press in black to the lower one, hand-sewn, untrimmed; pp. [iv], 5-12 + [ii], letterpress title-page in blue and black, hand-printed throughout on hand-made Barcham Green ‘Hayle’ paper; a fine and pristine copy without ownership marks or inscriptions, as new.

First edition of this short story by Sylvia Plath which was written in 1952 when she was 19-20 years old and still studying at Smith College: number 148 of only 160 copies.  The booklet is handset in Monotype Garamond and printed at The Fish Inn, Sutton Gault, Ely.

This early piece of prose work is interesting in the study of Plath’s developing style and is difficult to access, as it did not appear in print in her lifetime, is uncollected, and remained obscure until this limited edition, issued by Ted Hughes.  

The story concerns a young girl’s youthful naivety in testing her sexual power over a boy she has just met and as such it deals with themes of emotional manipulation and the cruelty that can arise in relationships, thus foreshadowing her only novel “The Bell Jar” (Heinemann, 1963).