Unpublished Ted Hughes poems about partner Assia Wevill to be sold

The recently found notebook of fragments and finished work has been described as the poet’s ‘most direct’ response to the suicide of his partner and daughter in 1969

A series of deeply personal unpublished poems by Ted Hughes has been discovered and will be auctioned at Sotheby’s next week.

The previously unseen poems were written shortly after the poet’s partner, Assia Wevill, killed herself and their daughter, Shura, in 1969, six years after the suicide of Hughes’s first wife Sylvia Plath.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.or