The People in Sylvia's Life comments on those who knew her.  We talked death with burned up intensity, both of us drawn to it like moths to an electric light bulb. - Anne Sexton memoir of Sylvia Anne Sexton met Sylvia while she audited a writing class at Boston College. The two became close friends as they discovered the bond between them, both having suffered depression and attempting suicides. In her memoir to Sylvia she discusses how the two would sit for hours discussing their obsessions with death and about the attempts they had made to end their own lives. The link above contains a poem that she for Sylvia after her death. What happen to Sylvia 's children? The morning that Sylvia was discovered by Myra Norris, the nurse that was sent to assist her through difficult period, she found the children crying locked in their room with the towels underneath to prevent the gas from going in. Though they were cold because Sylvia had left their window open in order to keep the room ventilated, they were unharmed. After the funeral they were left to their father's care. Despite Aurelia Plath's wish to have the children with her in America. Today her daughter Freida Hughes is now regarded as highly gifted artist. She lived for several years in Australia with her Australian artist husband, Laszlo Lukacs but recently returned to England. Following in her parents' footsteps, she had her children's book, Getting Rid of Edna, published in 1986. In addition, she has recently had her first collection of poems, First Pressing, published by Faber, with the distinct echo of Plath she received very favorable reviews. (Sylvia Plath Forum 1) She has recently replaced her aunt, Olwyn Hughes, as the executor of her mother's estate. On the other hand, unlike his sister, Nicholas Farr Hughes leads a more quiet and out of the public eye life. Choosing to follow a career in science, he is currently working in Alaska as a marine biologist. Assia Wevill - the other woman At the time of Sylvia's death, Ted Hughes was having an affair with Assia Wevill. His parents did not approve of his relationship with a woman who had yet to be divorced from her third husband. No one believed that the couple would last "because Sylvia's ghost was always between them."(Hayman 200) Assia tried in several ways to take Sylvia's place, especially after Ted moved her into Court Green(the home he had bought Sylvia by the sea), even to the point of using things that had belong to Sylvia. Like Plath, Assia was believed to have very emotional episodes. The worst blow that Sylvia dealt to Ted and his lover was the burden of her suicide. In 1969,apparently unable to handle the pressures of living with Ted and Sylvia's ghost, Assia took her life and selfishly the life of two year old Shura, the only daughter she bore Hughes in the same manner that her rival ended her own. The man Sylvia loved Since the time of Sylvia's death up through his own, Ted Hughes had been haunted by the memory and the stigma that his wife's death left behind. He was criticized by feminist groups, who held Sylvia as a martyr as her fame grew to cult status, blaming him for her death for having abandoned her in despair with two children to care for. After Sylvia's death, he was left in control of her estate publishing only selected material that would not bring further controversy to the scandal, for which he was highly criticized by the literary world, as well as, Sylvia's followers. Using copyright control, he refused many biographers permission to quote from her works when their points contradicted with his own views.(Hayman Into.) Those that were granted permission to material where kept under the watchful eye of OlwynHughes, Ted's sister, who would edit and in some cases rewrite passages that would bring a Ted and the family under scrutiny. Thus, making it appear as if the Hughes had something to hide regarding Sylvia's death. The biographies that were allowed to be published, portrayed Sylvia as a woman that was so neurotic and moody that no man/husband could have put up with her for long. (Hayman Intro) In other words, they paved the way for Ted to appear as the victim of a doomed marriage, thus, explaining why he sought companionship with Assia. However, it did not help matters for him when his mistress killed herself and their child in the same fashion, almost as if suggesting something destructive of Ted 's character. It was not until 1998, when his collection of poems, Birthday Letters, was published that his silence over his wife's death is broken. People and Places Sylvia Plath Forum - Books