The Bell Jar

“It is this perfectly wrought prose and the freshness of Plath’s voice in The Bell Jar that make this book enduring in its appeal.” — USA Today

Famous American author Sylvia Plath offers a genuine and poignant look at a woman suffering social pressures and mental illness. In ‘The Bell Jar’, Esther Greenwood's brilliant, gorgeous, incredibly talented, and successful career are chronicled as they progressively crumble—possibly for the last time. Sylvia Plath skillfully immerses the reader in Esther's breakdown with such intensity that it becomes possible to understand and relate to Esther's neurosis, making it seem as plausible and familiar as going to the movies. The Bell Jar is an eerie American classic because of its remarkable achievement of penetrating so deeply into the dark and terrifying corners of the psyche.

"I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy."—Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)

Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Massachusetts. Her books include the poetry collections The Colossus, Crossing the Water, Winter Trees, Ariel, and The Collected Poems, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Plath is credited with being a pioneer of the 20th-century style of writing called confessional poetry. Her poem "Daddy" is one of the best-known examples of this genre.
In 1963, Plath's semi-autobiographic novel The Bell Jar was published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas"; it was reissued in 1966 under her own name. A complete and uncut facsimile edition of Ariel was published in 2004 with her original selection and arrangement of poems. She was married to the poet Ted Hughes, with whom she had a daughter, Frieda, and a son, Nicholas. She died in London in 1963.