Most Popular Books by Sylvia Plath

A Special Hardcover Edition to Commemorate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Publication of Sylvia Plath''s Remarkable Novel Sylvia Plath''s shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about a woman falling into the grip of insanity Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther''s breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palpably real, even rational—as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.

"Crossing the Water, a collection of poems written just prior to those in Ariel, . . . is of immense importance in recording [Plath''s] extraordinary development. One senses on every page a voice coming into its own, the chaos of a lifetime at last getting ready to assume its final, triumphant shape." — Kirkus Reviews Sylvia Plath''s extraordinary collection pushes the envelope between dark and light, between our deep passions and desires that are often in tension with our duty to family and society. Water becomes a metaphor for the surface veneer that many of us carry, but Plath explores how easily this surface can be shaken and disturbed. This landmark collection from a 20th-century literary icon features: Pivotal Early Work: Experience the extraordinary artistic development in the poems written just before her magnum opus, Ariel, offering a vital glimpse into her evolving genius. Confessional Poetry: A voice coming into its own, exploring the chaos of a lifetime as it prepares to assume its final, triumphant shape. Nature & The Self: Water, stone, and flora become haunting symbols for the fragile surface of the psyche and the deep passions churning just beneath. Feminist Themes: A stark examination of the tensions between desire and the duties of family and society, from a foundational voice in women''s literature.

The complete, uncensored journals of Sylvia Plath—essential reading for anyone who has been moved and fascinated by the poet''s life and work. "A genuine literary event.... Plath''s journals contain marvels of discovery." —The New York Times Book Review Sylvia Plath''s journals were originally published in 1982 in a heavily abridged version authorized by Plath''s husband, Ted Hughes. This new edition is an exact and complete transcription of the diaries Plath kept during the last twelve years of her life. Sixty percent of the book is material that has never before been made public, more fully revealing the intensity of the poet''s personal and literary struggles, and providing fresh insight into both her frequent desperation and the bravery with which she faced down her demons.

The electrifying diaries that are essential reading for anyone moved and fascinated by the life and work of one of America''s most acclaimed poets. Sylvia Plath began keeping a diary as a young child. By the time she was at Smith College, when this book begins, she had settled into a nearly daily routine with her journal, which was also a sourcebook for her writing. Plath once called her journal her “Sargasso,” her repository of imagination, “a litany of dreams, directives, and imperatives,” and in fact these pages contain the germs of most of her work. Plath’s ambitions as a writer were urgent and ultimately all-consuming, requiring of her a heat, a fantastic chaos, even a violence that burned straight through her. The intensity of this struggle is rendered in her journal with an unsparing clarity, revealing both the frequent desperation of her situation and the bravery with which she faced down her demons.

Sylvia Plath''s first Collected Poems was published in 1981. This new volume draws on decades of research and almost doubles the content of that previous edition. The book is in two parts. It begins with the poems Plath composed in the last ten years of her life and on which her reputation is founded, and follows with those poems written in childhood and through her student years. In both sections the editors date, correct and arrange each poem chronologically, drawing on manuscripts, typescripts and related material. Critical notes help document Plath''s extraordinary evolution as a poet, from her childhood compositions through to the blossoming of early ambition and into the molten core that was to shape the poems of her last few years and secure her place in literary history.

This is the story of Young Max Nix, a seven-year-old boy in search of the perfect set of clothing. Yet Max receives more than he bargained for in the wonderful, woolly, whiskery, brand-new, mustard-yellow It-Doesn''t-Matter Suit.

"Plath''s voice is lucid and precise, and the poetry is deeply intense in its reading and mood. The words combined with the voice render stunning images of the inner self and the creative energy of Sylvia Plath." BooklistIncludes: Leaving Early * Mushrooms * The Surgeon at Two A.M. * The Disquieting Muses * Spinster * November Graveyard * A Plethora of Dyrads * The Lady and the Earthenware Head * On the Difficulty of Conjuring Up a Dryad * On the Decline of Oracles * The Goring * Ouija * Sculptor.

''Everything that passes before her eyes travels down from brain to pen with shattering clarity - 1950s New England, pre-co-ed Cambridge, pre-mass tourism Benidorm, where she and Hughes honeymooned, the birth of her son Nicholas in Devon in 1962. These and other passages are so graphic that you look up from the page surprised to find yourself back in the here and now . . . The struggle of self with self makes the Journals compelling and unique.'' John Carey, Sunday Times

Forms a kind of autobiography of at least one aspect of Sylvia Plath''s very complex life; it also documents the flowering of a bright young woman with promising talents into a full-blown genius, one of the greatest writers of this century.

“The Letters of Sylvia Plath underscores Plath’s jaw-dropping output, her rapid growth from merely talented to singular voice. . . . The result is a comprehensive portrait of the artist as a young woman, ardently — unnervingly — committed to literature and relationships.” —Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star-Tribune The first volume in the definitive, complete collection of the letters of Sylvia Plath—most never before seen. One of the most beloved poets of the modern age, Sylvia Plath continues to inspire and fascinate the literary world. While her renown as one of the twentieth century’s most influential poets is beyond dispute, Plath was also one of its most captivating correspondents. The Letters of Sylvia Plath is the breathtaking compendium of this prolific writer’s correspondence with more than 120 people, including family, friends, contemporaries, and colleagues. The Letters of Sylvia Plath includes her correspondence from her years at Smith, her summer editorial internship in New York City, her time at Cambridge, her experiences touring Europe, and the early days of her marriage to Ted Hughes in 1956. Most of the letters are previously unseen, including sixteen letters written by Plath to Hughes when they were apart after their honeymoon. This magnificent compendium also includes twenty-seven of Plath’s own elegant line drawings taken from the letters she sent to her friends and family, as well as twenty-two previously unpublished photographs. This remarkable, collected edition of Plath’s letters is a work of immense scholarship and care, presenting a comprehensive and historically accurate text of the known and extant letters that she wrote. Intimate and revealing, this masterful compilation offers fans and scholars generous and unprecedented insight into the life of one of our most significant poets.

Sylvia Plath was, for both English and American poetry, one of the defining voices of twentieth-century, and one of the most appealing: few other poets have introduced as many new readers to poetry. Though she published just one collection in her lifetime, The Colossus, and a novel, The Bell Jar, it was following her death in 1963 that her work began to garner the wider audience that it deserved. The manuscript that she left behind, Ariel, was published in 1965 under the editorship of her former husband, Ted Hughes, as were two later volumes, Crossing the Water and Winter Trees in 1971, which helped to make Sylvia Plath a household name. Hughes''s careful curation of Plath''s work extended to a Collected Poems and a Selected Poems in the 1980s, which remain in print today and stand testimony to the ''profound respect'' that Frieda Hughes said her father had for her mother''s work. It was not until the publication of a ''restored'' Ariel in 2004 that readers were able to appraise Plath''s own selection and arrangement of her work. This edition of the poems, chosen by the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, offers a fresh selection of Sylvia Plath''s poetry to stand in parallel to the existing editions. Introduced with an inviting preface, the book is essential reading for those new to and already familiar with the work of this most extraordinary poet.

Pulitzer Prize winner Sylvia Plath''s complete poetic works, edited and introduced by Ted Hughes. By the time of her death on 11, February 1963, Sylvia Plath had written a large bulk of poetry. To my knowledge, she never scrapped any of her poetic efforts. With one or two exceptions, she brought every piece she worked on to some final form acceptable to her, rejecting at most the odd verse, or a false head or a false tail. Her attitude to her verse was artisan-like: if she couldn''t get a table out of the material, she was quite happy to get a chair, or even a toy. The end product for her was not so much a successful poem, as something that had temporarily exhausted her ingenuity. So this book contains not merely what verse she saved, but--after 1956--all she wrote.--Ted Hughes, from the Introduction

Illuminating, incisive and entertaining insights into the writing life from one of our most renowned authors. Sylvia Plath always knew that she wanted to be a writer and she always wrote. She interrogated, both lightly and acutely, what the practice of writing means: how to see afresh whether you''re looking at a thistle or an umbrella; the what it is to want so much to ''live, love and say it well in good sentences ...'', and how she doesn''t think poems ''should be all that chaste'' but is unwilling to write one that includes mention of a toothbrush. The poet Maura Dooley has brought together excerpts from across Plath''s journals, letters, poems and prose as one poet mapping their journey through another poet''s observations and reflections on the writing life.