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Sylvia Plath's best poetry was produced, tragically, as she pondered self-destruction---in her poems as well as her life---and she eventually committed suicide. She had an extraordinary impact on British as well as American poetry in the few years before her death, and affected many poets, particularly women, in the generation after. She is a confessional poet, influenced by the approach of Robert Lowell. Born in Boston, a graduate of Smith College, Plath attended Newnham College, Cambridge University, on a Fulbright Fellowship and married the British poet Ted Hughes. Of her first collection,The Colossus and Other Poems (1962), the Times Literary Supplement remarked, "Plath writes from phrase to phrase as well as with an eye on the larger architecture of the poem; each line, each sentence is put together with a good deal of care for the springy rhythm, the arresting image and---most of all, perhaps---the unusual word." Plath's second book of poetry, Ariel, written in 1962 in a last fever of passionate creative activity, was published posthumously in 1965 and explores dimensions of women's anger and sexuality in groundbreaking new ways. Plath's struggles with women's issues, in the days before the second wave of American feminism, became legendary in the 1970s, when a new generation of women readers and writers turned to her life as well as her work to understand the contradictory pressures of ambitious and talented women in the 1950s. The Bell Jar---first published under a pseudonym in 1963 and later issued under Plath's own name in England in 1966---is an autobiographical novel describing an ambitious young woman's efforts to become a "real New York writer" only to sink into mental illness and despair at her inability to operate within the narrow confines of traditional feminine expectations. Plath was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1982. In recent years, there have been a number of biographies and critical evaluations of Plath's work. (Bowker Author Biography) — biography from The Bell Jar… (more)
Disambiguation Notice

Also published under the name Sylvia Plath Hughes and Victoria Lucas. Please do not combine this author page with the author page for Plath, as there are other authors with that surname. thank you.

The Bell Jar 26,541 copies, 476 reviews
Ariel 3,871 copies, 50 reviews
Sylvia Plath: The Collected Poems 3,752 copies, 22 reviews
Ariel: The Restored Edition 1,471 copies, 15 reviews
The Colossus and Other Poems 1,151 copies, 14 reviews
Letters Home 754 copies, 4 reviews
Crossing the Water 570 copies, 3 reviews
Plath: Poems 349 copies
Winter Trees 316 copies, 3 reviews
The Bed Book 226 copies, 5 reviews
The It-Doesn't-Matter Suit 120 copies, 5 reviews
Sylvia Plath: Drawings 88 copies, 3 reviews
Three Women 36 copies, 1 review
Lady Lazarus e altre poesie 33 copies, 1 review
I capolavori 15 copies
Luulet 4 copies
Daddy [poem] 4 copies
Mirror {poem} 3 copies
Fiesta Melons 2 copies
Max Nix 2 copies
Two Poems 2 copies
Gunlukler 2 copies
Noční tance 2 copies
Noveller 1 copy
L'Ombre 1 copy, 1 review
Initiation 1 copy, 1 review
Pursuit 1 copy
The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms (Contributor) 1,175 copies, 9 reviews
Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (Contributor, some editions) 882 copies, 7 reviews
The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry (Contributor) 708 copies, 3 reviews
Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas (Contributor) 707 copies, 10 reviews
The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists (Contributor, some editions) 528 copies, 8 reviews
American Gothic Tales (Contributor) 426 copies, 5 reviews
A Pocket Book of Modern Verse (Contributor, some editions) 421 copies, 1 review
The Norton Book of Women's Lives (Contributor) 399 copies, 1 review
Literature: The Human Experience (Contributor) 327 copies
The Portable Sixties Reader (Contributor) 311 copies, 3 reviews
The Penguin Book of Women Poets (Contributor) 289 copies
The Faber Book of Modern Verse (Contributor, some editions) 276 copies, 2 reviews
The New Poetry (Contributor) 260 copies, 1 review
The Penguin Book of Contemporary Verse (Contributor, some editions) 258 copies, 3 reviews
British Poetry Since 1945 (Contributor, some editions) 163 copies, 2 reviews
American Religious Poems: An Anthology (Contributor) 156 copies, 1 review
The Penguin Book of Women's Humour (Contributor) 114 copies
Emergency Kit (Contributor, some editions) 106 copies, 1 review
Poems from the Women's Movement (Contributor) 104 copies
The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink (Contributor) 62 copies, 1 review
Lament for the Makers: A Memorial Anthology (Contributor) 46 copies, 1 review
The Faber Book of Gardens (Contributor) 43 copies, 2 reviews
Science Fiction (Author) 38 copies, 1 review
60 Years of American Poetry (Contributor) 28 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1973 (Contributor) 22 copies
The Best American Short Stories 1969 (Contributor) 20 copies
AQA Anthology (Author, some editions) 19 copies
Loss: An Anthology (Contributor) 18 copies
Modern Poets: Four (Author) 17 copies
Modern Women Poets (Contributor) 13 copies
Poetry anthology (Contributor, some editions) 6 copies
The Bell Jar [1979 film] (Author) 5 copies
Winter's Tales 15 (Contributor) 2 copies
Manpareka Kehi Kavita (Contributor) 1 copy
In'hui, No.9 (Contributor) 1 copy
Månen : fra den indre verden til det ydre rum (Author, some editions) 1 copy, 1 review

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Short biography
Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short-story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel, as well as The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death. In 1981 The Collected Poems were published, including many previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the first to receive this honour posthumously.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Plath studied at Smith College in Massachusetts and at Newnham College in Cambridge, England. She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England. They had two children before separating in 1962.

Plath was clinically depressed for most of her adult life, and was treated multiple times with electroconvulsive therapy. She died by suicide in 1963.
Disambiguation notice
Also published under the name Sylvia Plath Hughes and Victoria Lucas.

Please do not combine this author page with the author page for Plath, as there are other authors with that surname. thank you.

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