Until you’ve consumed all of the best Sylvia Plath books, can you even claim to be a true fan?
1. The Collected Poems (P.S.) (2018)
A new edition of Sylvia Plath’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Collected Poems, edited and with an introduction by Ted Hughes…
2. The Bell Jar (Modern Classics) (2005)
The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under — maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that Esther’s insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of…
3. Ariel: The Restored Edition: A Facsimile of Plath’s Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement (P.S.) (Modern Classics) (2005)
Sylvia Plath’s famous collection, as she intended it. When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific life but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel. When her husband, Ted Hughes, first brought this collection to life, it garnered worldwide acclaim, though it wasn’t the draft Sylvia had wanted her readers to see. This facsimile edition restores, for the first time, Plath’s original manuscript – including handwritten notes – and her own selection and arrangement of poems. This edition also includes in facsimile the complete working drafts of her poem “Ariel,”…
4. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000)
A major literary event–the complete, uncensored journals of Sylvia Plath, published in their entirety for the first time.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…
5. The Colossus and Other Poems (1998)
With this startling, exhilarating book of poems, which was first published in 1960, Sylvia Plath burst into literature with spectacular force. In such classics as "The Beekeeper’s Daughter," "The Disquieting Muses," "I Want, I Want," and "Full Fathom Five," she writes about sows and skeletons, fathers and suicides, about the noisy imperatives of life and the chilly hunger for death. Graceful in their craftsmanship, wonderfully original in their imagery, and presenting layer after layer of meaning, the forty poems in are…
6. The Bell Jar (1975)
A vulnerable young girl wins a dream assignment working for big-time New York fashion magazine and finds herself plunged into a nightmare. An autobiographical account of Sylvia Plath's own mental breakdown and suicide attempt, The Bell Jar is more than a confessional novel, it is an honest and painful statement of what happens to a woman's aspirations in a society that refuses to take them seriously… A society that expects electroshock to cure the despair of a sensitive, questioning young artist whose search for identity becomes a terrifying descent toward madness….
7. Ariel by Sylvia Plath (1968-01-01) ()
Paperback Publisher: Faber & Faber; edition (1968-01-01) (1800) ASIN: B0182Q1QEW Shipping Weight: 4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: Be the first to review this item Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #663,685 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) Would you like to tell us about a lower price? If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support?…
8. Winter Trees (Faber Poetry) (2017)
The poems in Winter Trees were written in the last nine months of Sylvia Plath’s life, and form part of the group from which the Ariel poems were chosen. They reveal the poet at the height of her creative powers, exhibiting the startling imagery and dramatic play for which she became known. Published posthumously in 1971, this valuable collection finds its place alongside The Colossus and Ariel in the oeuvre of a singular talent.‘Nearly all the poems here have the familiar Plath daring, the same feel of bits of frightened, vibrant, indignant consciousness translated instantly into words and images that…
9. Crossing the Water (1980)
Crossing the Water is a 1971 posthumous collection of poetry by Sylvia Plath that was prepared for publication by Ted Hughes. These poems were written at the same time as those that appear in Ariel. Crossing the Water continues to push 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….
10. Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom: A Story (2019)
Never before published, this newly discovered story by literary legend Sylvia Plath stands on its own and is remarkable for its symbolic, allegorical approach to a young woman’s rebellion against convention and forceful taking control of her own life. Written while Sylvia Plath was a student at Smith College in 1952, Mary Ventura and The Ninth Kingdom tells the story of a young woman’s fateful train journey.Lips the color of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like “guilt, and guilt, and guilt”: these are…
11. Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953 (P.S.) (2014)
Pain, Parties, Work by Elizabeth Winder is a compelling look at a young Sylvia Plath and the life-changing month that would lay the groundwork for her seminal novel, The Bell Jar.In May of 1953, a twenty-one-year-old Plath arrived in New York City, the guest editor of Mademoiselle’s annual College Issue. She lived at the Barbizon Hotel, attended the ballet, went to a Yankee game, and danced at the West Side Tennis Club. She was supposed to be having the time of her life. But what would follow was, in Plath’s words, twenty-six days of pain,…
Best Sylvia Plath Books to Read
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Mary Ventura and The Ninth Kingdom
Author(s): Sylvia Plath
Publisher: , Year: 2018, Size: 2 Mb, Download: epub
ID: 2387165
Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953
Author(s): Elizabeth Winder
Publisher: Harper, Year: 2013, Size: 2 Mb, Download: epub
ID: 1059185
With Robert Lowell and his circle : Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, and others
Author(s): Spivack, Kathleen; Spivack, Kathleen
Publisher: Northeastern University Press, Year: 2012, Size: 1 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 1434991
Representing Sylvia Plath
Author(s): Sally Bayley and Tracy Brain (Editors)
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, Year: 2011, Size: 2 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 812624
The Bell Jar
Author(s): Sylvia Plath, Janet McCann
Publisher: Salem Press, Year: 2011, Size: 4 Mb, Download: pdf
ID: 1318244
Please note that this booklist is not absolute. Some books are really best-sellers according to USA Today, others are drafted by unknown authors. On top of that, you can always find additional tutorials and courses on Coursera, Udemy or edX, for example. Are there any other relevant books you could recommend? Drop a comment if you have any feedback on the list.