JACQUELINE SUSANN
This party-going lady and author of contentious novel Valley of the Dolls wasted no time in articulating her brutally honest feelings to her husband Irving Mansfield when things were hitting the rocks.
Dolls was published in 1966 and hit out against the way that rich men treated their women as toys, rendering them reliant on stimulants and anti-depressants. We love her no-nonsense
tongue-in-cheek letter to Mansfield, and we doubt that she had too much trouble moving on to her next affair with comedian Joe Lewis:
“Irving, when we were at the Essex House and I had room service and I could buy all my Florence Lustig dresses, I found that I loved you very much, but now that you’re in the Army and getting $56 a month, I feel that my love has waned.”
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
Renowned author of For Whom The Bell Tolls, amongst other works of fiction such as The Old Man and The Sea, had another string to his bow as a womanizing four-time husband.
But the most dramatic of his many liaisons and break-ups was the end of his third marriage with Martha Gellhorn, who refused to give up her career in journalism to comply with his vision of a traditional wife and even journeyed across stormy and war-torn seas when he attempted to prevent her travels. No need for extra drama to spice things up in that relationship!
Martha went on to cover the Vietnam War, the Six Day War in the Middle East and the civil wars in America, witnessing and documenting the most significant of historic changes around the globe. We detect a hint of sarcasm in her famous quote: “I daresay I was the worst bed partner in five continents.”
TED HUGHES AND SYLVIA PLATH
These two probably constitute the best known tempestuous literary pair of all time in both the States and the United Kingdom. Hughes published a glut of works including poetry collections as poet laureate, children’s books and plays, but his output has been overshadowed by his personal life.
Controversy has plagued the public perception of Ted’s treatment of his wife Sylvia Plath, given her suicide in 1963, and the ensuing suicide of his lover Assia Wevill in 1969 in a chain of tragic endings and questionable beginnings. Clearly infidelity and emotional fragility did not make a successful match. Plath’s novel The Bell Jar is seen to be semi-autobiographical and provides an insight into her world.
Although death parted them, the ending of this story continues to be a subject of tumultuous speculation. In 2010, a poem in which Ted addresses her last days was published for the very first time entitled the ‘Last Letter’. He describes the news of her death as a ‘measured injection’ and recalls his final meeting with her just two days before her death. A draft of the poem is available to view in the British Library.