Bloomsday, Joyce, Plath, Hughes

On June 16, 1904, in Dublin, James Joyce fell in love with Nora Barnacle, whom he'd known for about a week. He was 22. June 16 became “Bloomsday,” the day in which the plot of Ulysses takes place. Shortly after this meeting Joyce left Ireland for the Continent, and Nora went with him.

On June 16, 1956, Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes were married at St. George the Martyr in London. She was 23. They had known each other since February, when she met him at a party in Cambridge. When they embraced she kissed him and bit his cheek hard enough to draw blood.

Joyce appears ten times in A Book of Ages. Plath appears seven times. Both remarkably, poetically. The place where Plath and Hughes were married was aptly named. Plath died at age thirty, leaving 250 poems, two books of short stories, one novel and two small children.