Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom: A Story

“[Plath’s] story is stirring, in sneaky, unexpected ways. . . . Look carefully and there’s a new angle here — on how, and why, we read Plath today.”— Parul Sehgal, New York Times

Never before published, this newly discovered short story by literary legend Sylvia Plath is a remarkable allegorical tale about a young woman’s rebellion against convention and the forceful taking control of her own life.

Written while Sylvia Plath was a student at Smith College in 1952, Mary Ventura and The Ninth Kingdom is a compelling coming of age story about 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”: these 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.”

This strange, dark tale of female agency and independence, a powerful work of psychological fiction written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.