Nicholas Hughes

Nicholas Farrar Hughes (January 17, 1962 – March 16, 2009) was a British and American Hughes was the son of the American poet Sylvia Plath and English poet Ted Hughes, and the younger brother of artist and poet Frieda Hughes.

Early life Nicholas was born in North Tawton, Devon, England in 1962.

After her son was born, Plath wrote most of the poems that would comprise her most famous collection of poems (the posthumously published Ariel). Plath addressed one of her last poems, "Nick and the Candlestick", to her son:

In 1970, Ted Hughes remarried, and the children continued their life on the family farm in Devon.

Despite the posthumous fame of Sylvia Plath, and the growing literary and biographical writings about her death, Nicholas was not told about the circumstances of his mother's suicide until the 1970s. In 1998, Ted Hughes published Birthday Letters, over 30 years of poems about Plath, which he dedicated to his two children.

In the poem "Life After Death", Hughes recounts how:

Your son's eyes.... would become So perfectly your eyes, Became wet jewels The hardest substance of the purest pain As I fed him in his high white chair.

Professional career Hughes was passionate about wildlife, especially fish.

Hughes resigned from his faculty position at UAF in December 2006, but continued his scientific research

Death On March 16, 2009, Hughes died by suicide in his home in Fairbanks, Alaska. According to his UAF colleagues, he had long battled depression.