PLATH, Sylvia

“The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”

Born in Boston (MA) Sylvia Plath is a poet whose personal life has at times out-shadowed her poetry, however, from childhood Plath was determined to succeed as a writer, keeping diaries and sending her poems to local newspapers and publications. Her first poem was published in the Christian Science Monitor in 1950 shortly after Plath’s graduation from High School.

Despite suffering from depression and a failed suicide attempt Plath was an extremely able university student, graduating summa cum laude and then taking up a scholarship at Newnham College,Cambridge.

Plath met her future husband, Ted Hughes at a well documented launch party for a literary magazine and was a great exponent of his work. The two spent periods living and studying on both sides of the Atlanticand had two children together, before Hughes left her for Assia Wevill. Throughout her adult life Plath suffered from bouts of deep depression, the ending of her marriage threw her into a darker void and in 1963 she took her own life.

During her life time Plath had only one collection poetry published, The Colossus and other Poems (1960), but she had written a large body of work which Ted Hughes arranged to have published posthumously in  collections including Ariel, Crossing the Water and Winter Trees.

She also wrote a beautifully crafted semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, which was published shortly before her death under the pseudonym of Victoria Lucas.

Please scroll down to see our current stock of Plath first editions.