The Bell Jar (P.S. Series)

by Sylvia Plath

Overview

A beautifully designed Harper Perennial Deluxe Edition of this haunting American classic

“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

A realistic and emotional look at a woman who falls into the grips of insanity written by the iconic American writer Sylvia Plath

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 an enduring classic.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060837020
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	08/02/2005
Series:	P.S. Series
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	74,043
Product dimensions:	5.31(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.65(d)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Sylvia Plath was born in 1932 in Massachusetts. Her books include the poetry collections The Colossus, Crossing the Water, Winter Trees, Ariel, and Collected Poems, which won the Pulitzer Prize. 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.

Date of Birth:

October 27, 1932

Date of Death:

February 11, 1963

Place of Birth:

Boston, Massachusetts

Place of Death:

London, England

Education:

B.A., Smith College, 1955; Fulbright Scholar, Cambridge University

Editorial Reviews

Esther Greenwood’s account of her years in the bell jar is as clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing. . . . [This] is not a potboiler, nor a series of ungrateful caricatures: it is literature.

New York Times

The narrator simply describes herself as feeling very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel. The in-between moment is just what Miss Plath’s poetry does catch brilliantly—the moment poised on the edge of chaos.

Christian Science Monitor

The first-person narrative fixes us there, in the doctor’s office, in the asylum, in the madness, with no reassuring vacations when we can keep company with the sane and listen to their lectures.

Washington Post Book World

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 and make it as meaningful . . . as it was 25 years ago.

USA Today

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