Scholar wrote best-selling biographies

DIANE MIDDLEBROOK

1939-2007

Diane Middlebrook, a leading feminist scholar who wrote acclaimedbiographies of poets Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, died Saturday.She was 68.

Mrs. Middlebrook, who helped launch feminist studies at StanfordUniversity, where she taught literature for 35 years, died of cancerin San Francisco, according to Stanford officials.

She is best known for her 1991 best-seller Anne Sexton: ABiography, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and HerHusband: Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath, a Marriage, a 2003 best-sellerabout the tumultuous marriage of the poets.

Mrs. Middlebrook also wrote Suits Me: The Double Life of …