Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom

A newly discovered, never-before-seen story by Sylvia Plath.
Written while Sylvia Plath was a student at Smith College in 1952, Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom tells the story of a young woman’ s fateful train journey.
Lips the color of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like “ guilt, and guilt, and guilt” are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom.
“ But what is the ninth kingdom? ” she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. “ It is the kingdom of the frozen will, ” comes the reply. “ There is no going back. ”
Sylvia Plath’ s strange, dark tale of female agency and independence, written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.