Sylvia Plath wrote The Bell Jar in 1961. It was her only published novel. She was an American poet most famous for her collections Ariel and The Colossus. She committed suicide in 1963, a month after the publication of her novel. Plath was the first person who won Pulitzer Prize posthumously.
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On October 27, 1932, Sylvia was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She was interested in writing yet being a child. Her first written work was in the form of a personal diary. Later, she published a couple of pieces and won a scholarship for attending Smith College in 1950. During her studies, Sylvia got an internship opportunity at Mademoiselle magazine in New York. Like her protagonist, the writer worked as a guest editor in the summer of 1953.
Shortly after the internship, Plath tried to kill herself by overdosing on sleeping pills. She recovered at a medical institution and returned to complete her degree at Smith College in 1955.
In the same year, Fullbright Fellowship selected her to go to Cambridge University in the UK. She met Ted Hughes there, and in 1956 they married.
Plath’s first poetry collection was published in England in 1960. During the next two years, she gave birth to Freida and Nicholas, her daughter and son.
In 1963, Ted Hughes left Sylvia as he found another woman. The event threw her into clinical depression, and she underwent psychiatric treatment. Plath completed her only novel, The Bell Jar, and published it under the name of Victoria Lucas. But on February 11, 1963, Sylvia committed suicide.
