'Everything that passes before her eyes travels down from brain to pen with shattering clarity - 1950s New England, pre-co-ed Cambridge, pre-mass tourism Benidorm, where she and Hughes honeymooned, the birth of her son Nicholas in Devon in 1962. These and other passages are so graphic that you look up from the page surprised to find yourself back in the here and now . . . The struggle of self with self makes the Journals compelling and unique.' John Carey, Sunday Times