Ted Hughes, 1930-1998

Ted Hughes was born at Mytholmroyd, Yorkshire, in 1930, the son of William Henry Hughes and Edith Farrar Hughes. He was educated at Mexborough Grammar School, having moved there in 1937, when his father opened a newsagents. In 1948 he won a scholarship to Cambridge, and read English at Pembroke College before changing to Archaeology and Anthropology, graduating in 1954. At Cambridge he met Sylvia Plath (d1963), whom he married in 1956. The year after his marriage his first book of poetry, The Hawk in the Rain, was published by Faber & Faber to widespread acclaim. A number of increasingly diverse publications followed, including children's stories and poetry, librettos and poetry. After a short period in London and the USA he moved to Devon in 1961. In 1970 he maried his second wife, Carol Orchard, who survived him. He became Poet Laureate in 1984, and received the Order of Merit just before his death. He died in London in October 1998. By his first wife he had one son and one daughter.

From the guide to the Ted Hughes's Cave Birds, 1975, (University of Exeter)