Ted Hughes: Timeline

A list of the abbreviations used will be found at the end of the document

Date

Published Books

Published Poems, Broadsides(BS), Edited works(Ed).

Reviews, Essays, Current Interests, Events

1930

Born August 17th, Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, to William Henry and Edith (neé. Farrar) Hughes. Sister (Olwyn) two years older; brother (Gerald) "...was ten years older than me and made my early life a kind of paradise...which was ended abruptly by the war" (Letter to AS Nov.1982 re. 'Two').

"...brought up on his grandmother's farm" (Memoir, DT, Nov.1998). " My first six years shaped everything" (Interview. DT, Nov.1998)

1937

Family move to Mexborough, Yorkshire. Own a newspaper and tobacco shop.

1943

Mexborough Grammar School

1945

First poems written. "Zulus and the Wild West....All in imitation of Kipling".(UU 20)

1946

First poems published in School magazine - Don and Deane

'Harvesting' (essay) (Don and Deane) rewritten as 'The Harvesting' (story) (BBC Dec 1960)

Name used: Eeple Jote Hyewze

Influences: Folktales, Yeats, Hopkins, Virgil, Eliot, the "very different rhythms of the King James Bible" (WP 5-6)

1948

Wins open exhibition to Cambridge University.

1949

National Service. Spends much time reading and re-reading all of Shakespeare ("...he literally knows Shakespeare by heart..."(SPLH Aug. 2 1956)

1950

Enters Pembroke College, Cambridge to study English. "I spent most of my time reading folklore and Yeats's poems" (UU 56) "Beethoven's music...was my therapy" (PR 85)

1952

Family return to West Yorkshire to live at The Beacon, Heptonstall.

1953

Fox dream: drops English to study Archaeology and Anthropology (WP 8-9)

1954

'The Little Boys and the Seasons' (Granta)

'Song of the Sorry Lovers' (Chequer)

'The Jaguar' / 'The Casualty' (Chequer)

Pseudonym - Daniel Hearing

Pseudonym - Peter Crew

Graduates from Cambridge

'The Woman with Such...'(Delta 5)

Read a Penguin of American Poets ",,,that started me writing...", "...infatuated with John Crowe Ransom" (UU 210)

Comment on Chequer (review): Pseudonym - Jonathan Dyce

Living in London (Rugby St.) and Cambridge.

Rose gardener, night-watchman, zoo attendant, schoolteacher, reader for J. Arthur Rank. Planning to teach in Spain then emigrate to Australia (SPLH May 4).

1956

'Secretary'/ 'Soliloquy of a Misanthrope'/ 'Fallgrief's Girlfriend'/ 'Meeting'/ 'Law in the Country of Cats' (St. Botolph's Review)

Many Hawk in the Rain poems published

Feb. 26 - Launch of St Botolph's Review. Meets Sylvia Plath

March 25 - Second meeting with Sylvia.

June 16 - Married to Sylvia Plath at St. George the Martyr's Church, Bloomsbury.

June/July in Spain. Writing animal fables (SPJ. 'Benidorm')

Aug - To Heptonstall

Sept - Audition for BBC poetry readings (SPLH Sept. 28).

Oct 10 - To London for BBC reading of Yeats's poems. Misses Sylvia at station (SPLH Oct. 16; Birthday Letters 'Fate Playing')

Nov - Living in Cambridge (55 Eltisley Ave.) Teaching English and Drama at local secondary modern school.

Astrology, horoscopes, hypnotism, tarot and experimenting with Ouija board (SPLH Oct. 28)

1957

Sept - Hawk in the Rain

April - 'O'Kelly's Angel' (story) (Granta)

May - 'Bartholemew Pygge Esquire' (story) (Granta)

Many Hawk in the Rain poems published

Aug - First Lupercal poem published: 'Dream of Horses' (Gracecourt review)

Dec - 'Everyman's Odyssey' (Landmarks and Voyages)

Feb – Hawk in the Rain wins Harper publication contest.

Feb - Pan and Ouija board (SPLH Feb 8). Snatchcraftington, alphabetical fables (SPLH Feb. 24)

April - BBC reading (1 poem)

May - Hears Robert Frost reading at Cambridge (SPLH May 24)

June -  To Yorkshire. Then to USA (Wellesley then Cape Cod)

Aug - To Northampton (337 Elm St.) Sylvia teaching at Smith College

Aug - Meet Bill and Dido Merwin.

1958

Many Lupercal poems published. "...invocations to writing..." (UU 209), "a deliberate effort to find a simple concrete language" (UU 209)

Spring - Teaching at Amherst, University of Massachusetts.

April 11 - Poetry reading at Harvard (SPLH April 22)

May - Reading Creon in Paul Roche's Oedipus trans. At Smith.(SPJ May 19)

May 4 - Meets Baskins (Leonard and Esther).

June - Six Lupercal poems recorded in USA.

July - Summons Pan with Ouija board (SPJ July 4; SPLH July 5))

Aug - BBC (6 Lupercal poems)

June - Rents flat in Boston (Willow Street, Beacon Hill)

Dec - Making wolf mask (SPJ Dec. 28)

Guinness Poetry Award

1959

Pike (BS)(LE 50)

Many Lupercal poems published.

Doing "exercises in meditation and invocation... [from] magic literature" (UU 210)

Oct - Writes House of Taurus (scrapped) "...symbolic drama based on the Euripides play The Bacchae" (SPLH Oct. 7). Precursor to Gaudete (ATH 186-7)

Nov - Revising Meet My Folks (SPJ Nov. 1)

April - Awarded Guggenheim fellowship (SPJ April 23).

Summer - touring N. America by car.

Exercises in meditation and invocation. Had been pursuing Cabalistic and Hermetic interests. for some time (UU 41)

Sept - Yaddo Artists' Colony for 11 weeks. Meets Chou Wen-Chung, agrees to collaborate on Bardo Thodol.

Dec - Returns to England (Heptonstall, Yorkshire)

Reviews: Weekend in Dinlock, Segal.

1960

March. - Lupercal

Writing Recklings and Wodwo poems and Radio plays

Wodwo "a descent into destruction of some sort" (UU 205)

'The Caning', "Very fine, very difficult"(SPJ Nov. 15), 'The Rainhorse', 'Sunday', 'Snow', 'The Harvesting' (stories)

Writing and rewriting Bardo Thodol libretto (unperformed). Setting: Chou Wen-Chung .

Dreams of The Wound action and text. (ABC interview 1976)

Feb - Move to London (3 Chalcot Sq. Primrose Hill)

Feb - Reading at Oxford Poetry Society (BF 184)

March - Using Merwins' study.

March - Hawk in the Rain wins Somerset Maughan award(SPLH March 24)

March - Lupercal wins Hawthornden Prize (SPLH March 27)

April - Dinner at T.S. Eliot's (SPLH April 26) "...one of the very great poets. One of the few" (PR 73)

May - Meets Alan Sillitoe and his wife, Ruth Fainlight (BF 213)

June - Cocktail party at Fabers, photograph with Faber Poets (SPLH June 24), "Duk-dam charm to call fools in a circle" (ABC interview 1976)

July 9 BBC accepts House of Aries (SPLH July 9)

BBC – (plays, stories and talks)

1961

April. - Meet my Folks

Aug - pamphlets for BBC broadcasts Listening and Writing

Aug - Dully Gumpton's College Courses. 'Theology' "a more concentrated and natural kind of poetry..." (UU 211)

Aug - 'The Wound' written, "a Celtic-Gothic Bardo Thodol" (ABC interview 1976)

'Miss Mambrett and the Wet Cellar' (story)

Jan - Thom Gunn to dinner (SPLH Jan 1)

Feb - Sylvia Plath miscarries

July - Reading (Poetry at the Mermaid, London)

Aug - Sells lease on London flat to Wevills. Move to Devon (Court Green)

Nov - BBC, The Odyssey 'The Storm' Book V (translation of Homer)

Nov - BBC, The House of Aries (play produced)

BBC (interview, talk, poems, school broadcasts)

Selector for Poetry Book Society Choice.

Reviews: Lochness Monster, Dinsdale; Living Free, Adamson; The Cat in the Hat Comes Back, Seuss; Barnaby and the Horses, Pender; Timba, Gringolo, Koenig.

1962

May- Selected Poems with Thom Gunn

April - Leonard Baskin (Introduction)

Gaudete - begun as a film script (UU 123)

The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz, Andreas. "...for over a year [this] became my prime source of inspiration" (BBC TP, 1963)

Jan 17 - Nicholas Farrar born

Feb - BBC, The Wound (play produced)

Feb - Interest in shamanic dismemberment, Bacchae and Orphic myths (BF 320). Reading Nietzsche.

May - Wevills visit. Selling Daffodils (SPLH May 14)

June - Beekeeping (SPLH June 15)

July - Reading for Critical Quarterly, Bangor, Wales (BF 251)

May - David and Assia Wevill visit

June - 'The Poetry of Keith Douglas' (essay)

Sept - Ted and Sylvia agree to a separation. Ted moves to London.

BBC (school broadcasts, talk, poems, stories)

Introductions: The Little Prince, St. Exupéry; Tarka the Otter, Williamson; The Worst Journey in the World, Cherry-Garrard.

Reviews: The Nerve of some Animals, Froman. Man and Dolphin, Lilly; Primitive Song, Bowra; One Fish Two Fish, Seuss; The Cat's Opera, Dillon; The Otter's Tale, Maxwell; Animals of the Forest, Vérité; Close-up of a Honeybee, Foster; Oddities of Animal Life, Roberts; Imitations, Lowell; Anthology of W. African Folk-lore, Jablow; Everyman's Ark, Johnson; Here Come the Elephants, Goudey;

1963

Nov - How the Whale Became (fables)

Nov - The Earth-Owl and other Moon People

Jan - Here Today, (Introduction)

May - Five American Poets (Ed)

Sept - 'The Rock', (The Listener)

Jan - BBC, Difficulties of a Bridegroom (play produced) Based on The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz, "words, music and pictures...the interest is in imagery and mood" (BBC TP 1965); "a tribal dream" (UU 212)

Feb - Sylvia Plath dies

Sept - BBC, The Rock ( talk)

Sept - 'The Poetry of Keith Douglas' (essay)

Oct - 'Ten Poems by Sylvia Plath' (introduction)

Nov - 'The Rat Under the Bowler" (essay)

BBC (interviews, poems, talks)

Reviews: I Said the Sparrow, West; The World of Men, Baldwin; Rule and Energy, Press; Vagrancy, O'Connor; Emily Dickinson's Poetry, Anderson; Folktales of Japan, Seki; Folktales of Israel, Noy.

1964

April - Nessie the Mannerless Monster

Jan - 'The Howling of Wolves'

Feb - Selected Poems, Keith Douglas (Ed): (Introduction)

March - 'The Suitor' (story)

Writing Eat Crow (UU 212)

'Dice' (poem in 8 parts)

Gaudete finished 

Feb – BBC Dogs: A Scherzo (play produced)

Nov/Dec - BBC The Coming of the Kings (play produced)

Reviews: Voss, White; Myth and Religion of the North, Turvielle-Petre; The Collected Poems of Wilfred Owen, Day Lewis; Selections of African Prose, Whiteley; The Heroic Recitations of the Bahima of Ankole, Morris; Somali Poetry, Andrzejewski and Lewis; The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, Rokeach; Letters of Alexander Pushkin, Shaw; Astrology, MacNeice; Ghost and Divining-rod, Lethbridge / Shamanism, Eliade; The Sufis, Shah (probably written in 1962, see Bitter Fame p. 320); Mysterious Senses, Dröscher; Heimskringla, The Prose Edda, Sturlson; Gods, Demons and Others, Narayan.

1965

March- Ariel, Sylvia Plath, (Ed)

June - Eat Crow (play) (parts of Difficulties of a Bridegroom)

Modern Poetry in Translation (Editorial)

Autumn - 'The Tiger's Bones' (play); 'Beauty and the Beast'(play)

Jan - 'Sylvia Plath' (note on Ariel)

April - The Genius of Isaac Belshevis Singer' (essay)

Helped to organise the first big Arts Council International Poetry Festival. Reading with Auden and Neruda. (PR 73)

Sept - BBC 'The House of Donkeys' (re-telling of Japanese folk-tale)

Sept - Reading 3 poems at Edinburgh Festival

Oct - BBC - Reading 'Ghost Crabs', 'Waking', 'Gog III' from play - Difficulties of a Bridegroom

Nov/Dec - BBC The Tiger's Bones; Beauty and the Beast (plays produced)

Reviews: Faber Book of Ballads, Hodgart; Men who Marched Away, Parsons; Literature Among the Primitives, The Primitive Reader, Greenaway.

BBC (poetry readings, talks)

1966

Oct - The Burning of the Brothel (LE 300)

Crow poems begun at request of Baskin to accompany drawings. "...the way I wrote...when I was about nineteen". (UU 121)  

Summer - 'Vasco Poppa' (essay)

Sept - BBC The Price of a Bride (play produced)

Fall - On The Chronological Order of Plath's Poems (notes)

Reviews: Dylan Thomas Letters, Fitzgibbon 

BBC (poetry reading, talks)

1967

Jan. - Recklings (LE 150)

April - Scapegoats and Rabies (LE 400) 

May - Wodwo (contains 'Ballad from a Fairy Tale')

Aug - Animal Poems (LE 100)

Dec - Poetry in the Making (broadcasts)

'Gravestones' (BS) (LE 40)

First Crow poems published: 'Three Legends', 'A Battle', 'Lovesong'

Jan 20 - Alexandra Tatiana Eloise Wevill (Shura) born 

July - BBC Poetry International '67 (speaking and reading; broadsheet and programme notes)

Sept/Oct - BBC The Head of Gold (play produced)

1968

Feb - The Iron Man (story) "I just wrote it out as I told it over two or three nights" (IOS 5.9.93)

Dec - Five Autumn Songs (LE 500)

March - A Choice of Emily Dickinson's Verse (Introduction)

July - Yehuda Amichai: Selected Poems (collaborated on trans.)

Aug - The Oedipus of Seneca (TH's adaptation of Seneca for Peter Brook ) "...concentrated my writing...useful in Crow" (UU 212)

Beauty and the Beast (play)

Many Crow poems published.

March 19 - Seneca's Oedipus (TH adaptation) performed (Old Vic)

March - The Demon of Adachigahara (libretto) Setting by Crosse, performed at Shrewsbury.

May - BBC Sean, the Fool, the Devil and the Cats (play produced)

Five Autumn Songs written for and read at Harvest Festival, Little Missenden.

Autumn - Reading poetry at Peacock Theatre, Dublin.

BBC (poetry and play readings)

Reviews: Folk tales of Chile, Dawson; Hindoo Fairy Tales, Frere; The Glass man and the Golden Bird, Manning-Sanders; The Black Monkey, Hampden.

1969

Dec - Seneca's Oedipus (adaptation)

Feb - Vasco Popa: Selected Poems (Introduction)

'I Said Goodbye to Earth' (BS) (LE 75) (first published Gaudete poem)

Many Crow poems published.

Feb - The New World songs commissioned (performed in 1972)

Co-director of Poetry International

The Battle of Aughrim recorded

Death of Hughes' mother

Awarded City of Florence International Poetry Prize

1970

March - The Martyrdom of Bishop Farrar (LE 100)

March - A Crow Hymn (LE 100)

Sept - The Coming of the Kings (4 plays)

Oct - Crow: from the Life and Songs of the Crow

Oct - A Few Crows (LE 75)

Oct - Amulet (LE 1)

Aug - 'Four Crow Poems'(BS) (LE 20)

Oct - 'Fighting for Jerusalem' (BS) (LE 1)

The Tiger's Bones (play)

The House of Donkeys (part of the play)

Jan - 'The Chronological Order of Sylvia Plath's Poems '(Note in The Art of Sylvia Plath)

March - 'Myth and Education' I (NY publication) (essay)

May - Poetry D-Day (Reading at the Roundhouse)

Interview with Ekbert Faas (UU 197-208)

Settings of two poems performed at the Edinburgh festival. 'King of Carrion', 'Eros'.

BBC (poetry readings, talks)

Reviews: Children's games in Street and Playground, Opie; The Environmental Revolution, Nicholson, The God Beneath the Sea, Garfield/Blishen; The Book of Imaginary Beings, Borges.

1971

March - Shakespeare's Poem (LE 150)

April - Crow Wakes (LE 200)

April - Poems with Ruth Fainlight and Alan Sillitoe.

Nov - Eat Crow (LE 150)

Autumn Song (poster) 'Who killed the Leaves?'

'The Poetry of Ted Hughes' (Sheets) (LE)

May - Fiesta Melons, Plath (Introduction) (LE 150)

Orpheus (verse play)

May - Crossing the Water, Plath (Ed)

Sept – Winter Trees, Plath (Ed. and Note)

Nov - With Fairest Flowers While Summer Lasts: Poems From Shakespeare (Ed. and Introduction) (LE 140)

Nov - A Choice of Shakespeare's Verse (Introduction) First formulation of the 'Tragic Equation'.

Dec - 'The Birth of Socas' (extract form Orghast) "I wrote about 100 poems and scenarios for Peter Brook's company to improvise with". (Conversation with AS, 1995)

Jan - BBC Orpheus (play performed).

Began to look again at the Gaudete material. The underworld the "most interesting part" of story narrative "trimmed itself down". (UU 214)

July-Dec - Accompanies Peter Brook to Shiraz Festival, Persia. Orghast performed. "...we orchestrated the sounds..." (ABC interview, 1976)

Gaudete rewritten and many more poems added(UU 123)

The Arvon Foundation Established by John Fairfax and John Moat. "...I thought the scheme was unworkable". Involved with first course in Devon and was converted. "I spent no small volume of time and cash on it" (Letter to AS, Aug. 1993).

1972

Feb - Sunday ( Story from Wodwo, separate publication by CUP)

Sept - The Coming of the Kings (script)

Oct - Selected Poems 1957 - 67

 'A Little Girl's Angel Gaze' (BS) (LE 50)

Nov - Orghast at Persepolis, Smith (excerpts from play; ideas, language and myth)

Works in Progress 5 (Faas Interview)

Aug/Sept - 'The New World' (libretto) Setting by Crosse, performed at The Three Choirs Festival (Worcester.)

Buys Moortown Farm (95 acres) and runs it with Carol. and her father, Jack Orchard who had owned a farm near Crediton. (Conversation with AS, 1995)

Dec - BBC TV The Iron Man read

Reviews: A Separate Reality, Castaneda.

1973

Nov - Prometheus on his Crag (LE 160)

July - Orpheus (play - director's notes)

Stones: Poems by Paul Merchant (Introduction) (LE 150)

March -  Vasco performed (Sadlers Wells)

Awarded Premio Internazionale Taormina Prize

1974

Feb - The Story of Vasco (libretto)

July - Sean, the Fool, the Devil and the Cats (script)

July - Beauty and the Beast (script)

Sept - Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter (LE 140)

The House of Donkeys (complete play)

First Cave Birds poems published: 'The Summoner', 'The Executioner', 'The Risen'. "...my starting point was the death of Socrates [and his] murder of the Mediterranean Goddess" (Letter to AS, Nov. 1984).

Sees Baskin bird-drawings. Begins bird drama - Cave Birds

Becomes president of Farms for City Children charity

Awarded Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

1975

March - The Interrogator (LE 250) ('A Titled Vulturess')

Oct - Seasons Songs

 May - 'Cave Birds' ( 10 poems) (LE 125) (written 1974 -5)

A few Gaudete poems published.

Dec - Children as Writers 2 (Foreword)

April - Reading Crow poems at Cambridge Poetry Festival "[Crow] an expanded story for children" (CU recording)

May 30 - Cave Birds and Lumb's Remains performed (Ilkley Literature Festival). [Cave Birds]"...a mystery play of sorts", [Lumb's Remains] "...constitutes the Epilogue of a longish poem called Gaudete" (Programme Notes)

June - BBC Cave Birds read.

1976

May - Earth Moon (LE 226)

July - Eclipse (LE 250)

Nov - Moon Whales

 'Moon Hops' (LE 1)

Sept - Janos Pilinsky: Selected Poems (Co-Ed., Introduction)

Words Broadsheet Twenty-Five: Four Poets ('The Virgin Knight') (LE 200)

March - Attends Adelaide Festival (readings and interviews)

Cambridge Book of English Verse 1939-75, Bold (parts of an unpublished letter)

'Myth and Education' II (London publication) (Essay)

Arvon Foundation Conversation 

1977

May - Gaudete

June - Chiasmadon (LE 185)

Aug - Sunstruck (LE 300) 

June - Amen, Yehuda Amichai (Co-Translator, Introduction)

Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams, Plath (Introduction, Postscript)

Aug - Platform Performance of Gaudete (National Theatre)

Sept - BBC TH introduces and reads Season Songs.

Second interview with Ekbert Faas (UU 208-215)

Awarded OBE

1978

Feb - Moon Bells

July - A Solstice (LE 100)

Aug - Orts (LE 200)

Oct - Cave Birds

Oct - Moortown Elegies (LE 150)

'Moortown Elegies' (BS) (LE 100)

'The Head', (story)

June - Vasco Popa: Collected Poems (Introduction)

Recording for Norwich Tapes, Critical Forum Series: ...[poetry/magic] "is one way of making things happen the way you want them to happen".

1979

Jan - The Threshold (LE 100)

April - Remains of Elmet (LE 180) "written in response to Fay Godwin's photographs...first poems reflected my mother's love of this area" . The 1994 reprinting: "I deliberately made this version a collection about my family". Conversation with AS, 1994)

April - Remains of Elmet (LE 180)  

Aug - Four Tales Told by an Idiot (LE 450)

Nov - Adam and the Sacred Nine (LE 200) "...to conjure myself to be a bit more birdlike" (PR 72)

Oct - Moortown 

Dec - Henry Williamson (tribute) (LE 200)

Morrigu Press (BS, 3 poems) (LE 30)

'Brooktrout' (BS) (LE 60)

'Pan' (BS) (LE 60)

'Woodpecker' (BS) (LE 60)

'In the Black Chapel' (BS) (LE 1500) for V & A exhibition.

'Wolverine' (BS) (LE 75)

'You hated Spain' , 'Salmon Taking Times', The Earthenware Head'.

May - ITV TH reads poems from Remains of Elmet.

Poems in All Round the Year, Morpurgo.

Dec - Tribute to Henry Williamson read at St Martin's in the Fields

Voted best poet writing in English in small New Poetry poll (BBC Internet News , 1 Jan. 1999)

Sept/Oct - Exhibition of 'Illustrations to Ted Hughes Poems' at Victoria and Albert Museum, London

1980

'Eagle' (BS) (LE 75)

'Mosquito' (BS) (LE 60)

'Tapir's Song' (BS) (LE 15)

'Sky Furnace' (BS) (LE 150)

'The Tigerboy' (story)

Oct - The Reef and Other Poems, Sagar (Introduction)

New Poetry 6 (Ed.)

Fishing in Alaska with Nicholas

Ted Hughes: The Unaccommodated Universe, Faas (interviews, essays, reviews collected)

The Pig Organ (libretto). Setting, Blackford, performed (Roundhouse, London)

BBC (poetry readings)

1981

March - Under the North Star

July - A Primer of Birds (LE 250)

'Three River Poems' (BS) (LE 75)

'Cows' (BS) (LE 76)

The Way To Write, Fairfax and Moat (Introduction)

Ted Hughes: A Critical Study, Gifford / Roberts (poem and extracts from letters)

Collected Poems, Plath (Ed., Introduction)

'In Defence of Crow' (essay)

Death of Hughes' father

1982

Feb -  New Selected Poems 1957 - 81

July - Wolf-watching (LE 75)

'The Great Irish Pike' (Sheets) (LE 26)

The Rattle Bag (Ed. with Seamus Heaney)

The Journals of Sylvia Plath (Co-Ed., Foreword)

Arvon Foundation Poetry Comp. 1980 Anthology (Co-judge, part of Intro.)

What Rhymes with Secret, Brownjohn (Foreword)

Reviews: Where I Used to Play on the Green, Glyn Hughes

1983

Sept - River

'Mice are Funny Little Creatures' (BS) (LE 75)

'Weasels at Work' (BS) (LE 75)

'Flying Insects' (BS) (LE 75)

Modern Poetry in Translation, Weissbort (Introduction)

1984

June - What is the Truth ("...written at the suggestion of C and M Morpurgo who run Farms for City Children" (PBS Notes, Autumn, 1995)

The Complete Prints of Leonard Baskin ('The Hanged Man and the Dragonfly' - Introduction).

Where I Used to Play on the Green, G. Hughes (Introduction)

Britain: The World by Itself, Perring and Press (poem and prose passage)

'Subsidy for Poetry' (essay)

Dec - Appointed Poet Laureate. Paul Muldoon said "Who does he think he is. Calling himself 'Ted' as if he went round in a cloth cap" (Conversation with AS. Sept. 1997)

1985

Mokomaki (LE 50)

The Best Worker in Europe (LE 150)

Sylvia Plath's Selected Poems (Ed.)

45 Contemporary Poems, Turner (poem and essay)

'Putting a value on UK's salmon riches' (letter)

1986

Aug - Ffangs the Vampire Bat and the Kiss of Truth

Oct - Flowers and Insects

'The Whistle'; 'Group'; 'Circuit', poems by Sorescu (TH Trans.)

Jan - ITV The Iron Man, readings by Tom Baker begin

William Golding, Carey ('Baboons and Neanderthals' - Essay)

'Children and secretly listening adults' (letter)

'About the Arvon Foundation' (notes)

1987

Aug - T.S. Eliot: A Tribute (LE 150)

Sept - The Cat and the Cuckoo (LE 2000, 250 signed)

The Cat and the Cuckoo poems and prints (LE 200 ea.) "...my wish was to capitalise on a character study of the creature....My model was runic knots...mnemonic quipus" (PBS Notes, Autumn 1995)

The Complete Poems of Keith Douglas, Graham (Introduction)

The Singing Brink, Dooley and Hunter, (Introduction)

'An Introduction to 'The Thought Fox'' (Essay)

'To parse or not to parse' (letter)

'On Sylvia Plath's biographers' (letter)

'No chance for fishery interests' (letter)

‘The place where Sylvia Plath should rest in peace' (letter)

'Sylvia Plath: the facts about her life and the desecration of her grave' (letter)

‘Where research becomes intrusion' (letter)

1988

June - Tales of the Early World (fables)

Began writing The Iron Woman "...at one point I was scared by it and had to back off" (IOS 34)

An Anthology of Poetry for Shakespeare, Osborne (Foreword)

First and Always, Sail (Introduction)

Letters to an Editor, Fisher (includes letters from TH)

1989

Sept - Moortown Diary

Sept - Wolfwatching "doubting my powers and getting older. Of course both wolves are caged and confined". (Conversation with AS Dec. 1994)

Writing The Goddess of Complete Being, "The Silence of Cordelia"

In Praise of Trout, Profumo (Foreword)

Notes on Wolfwatching (PBS Bulletin)

1990

Capriccios (LE 50)

Sean Hill's Gidleigh Park Cookbook, (Foreword)

Gabbioano, Pennati (Facsimile of letter from TH)

Dear (Next) Prime Minister, Astley (includes letter from TH)

Three Contemporary Poets, Dyson (includes 'A Reply to Critics' and excerpts form letter)

1991

Winning Words (Judge, and Foreword)

1992

April - Shakespeare and the