Sylvia Plath

American poet and novelist known for her exquisite poetry and her autobiographical novel, “The Bell Jar,” published in 1963. The novel centers on a young woman with a fragile hold on life. Plath committed suicide shortly after its publication.

Plath was a sensitive, studious child, born to a college professor and his educated, cultured wife. In November 1940, when Sylvia was just 8 years old, her father died from complications of diabetes. An intense student, she worked hard to achieve good grades. The following year, in August 1941, one of Plath’s poems was published in a Boston, MA newspaper. By age 18, she had won awards for her poetry and, with her excellent grades and obvious talent, she won a scholarship to Smith College. During her junior year, she spent the summer in New York as a guest editor for Mademoiselle, a fashion magazine. While still a student at Smith, she had a nervous breakdown, attempted suicide by swallowing sleeping pills and was given shock treatments. Despite such upheaval, she graduated in 1955 and went to Cambridge, England on a Fulbright scholarship.

One night at a party in Cambridge, February 25, 1956, she met Ted Hughes, and their romance began in a blaze of passion. She wrote, "He kissed me bang smash on the mouth, And when he kissed my neck, I bit him long and hard on the cheek and, when we came out of the room, Blood was running down his face." The handsome gifted pair married four months later, on June 16, 1956.

The couple had two children, Frieda in 1960 and Nicholas in 1962. During their time together, the brilliant and tortured Plath mined her own anguish, writing obsessively of her depression, her jealousy, her marriage and her father, the strict, formal professor who had abandoned her by his premature death. Her first book, "The Colossus" was released in 1960.