Other editions of book The Bell Jar

The Bell Jar is a classic of American literature, with over two million copies sold in this country. This extraordinary work chronicles the crackup of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, successful -- but slowly going under, and maybe for the last time. Step by careful step, Sylvia Plath takes us with Esther through a painful month in New York as a contest-winning junior editor on a magazine, her increasingly strained relationships with her mother, and with the boy she dated in college, and eventually, devastatingly, into the madness itself. The reader is drawn into her breakdown with such intensity that her 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 rare in any novel. It points to the fact that The Bell Jar is a largely autobiographical work about Plath's own summer of 1953, when she was a guest editor at Mademoiselle and went through a breakdown. It reveals so much about the sources of Sylvia Plath's own tragedy that its publication was considered a landmark in literature. "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 This special 25th-anniversary edition includes a new foreword by Frances McCullough,who was the Harper & Row editor for the original edition, about the untold story of The Bell Jar's first American publication.

Now in its 50th anniversary edition, Sylvia Plath's groundbreaking semi-autobiographical novel offers an intimate, honest and often wrenching glimpse into mental illness. The Bell Jar broke the boundaries between fiction and reality and helped cement Sylvia Plath's place as an enduring feminist icon. Celebrated for its darkly humorous, razor sharp portrait of 1950s society, it continues to resonate with readers today as testament to the universal human struggle to claim one's rightful place in the world.The year is 1953. Recent graduate Esther Greenwood leaves Boston for New York City when she wins a coveted summer internship at a prestigious fashion magazine. A talented aspiring writer, Esther's initial elation erodes as the clamour and glamour of big city life jars the sensitive introvert. Somewhere between the cocktail parties and piles of manuscripts, Esther's life begins to slide out of control. Back in Massachusetts she spirals into depression as she grapples with an identity crisis brought on by the pressures and expectations of the rigid gender roles of the 1950's. Esther struggles with difficult personal relationships: a disappointing fiancé, the loss of her father and a mother who fails to grasp the depths of her despair. Esther ultimately finds herself in a mental asylum, where she is unsuccessfully "cured" with traumatic electroshock therapy.Esther shares her desperate and harrowing attempt to escape her crippling depression. Readers of Plath's poetry will recognize her voice as Esther documents the feelings of sadness, lethargy, boredom, hopelessness and isolation that accompany a major depressive disorder in a time when mental health challenges were poorly understood, stigmatized, and often barbarically treated.Originally published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas just a few weeks before the author's suicide, The Bell Jar has sold millions of copies worldwide and has become a modern classic. Its stark portrayal of mental illness and women's treatment in society set the stage for later books such as Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation and Susanna Kaysen's Girl Interrupted. 'It is a fine novel, as bitter and remorseless as her last poems . . . The world in which the events of the novel take place is a world bounded by the Cold War on one side and the sexual war on the other . . . In looking at the madness of the world and the world of madness it forces us to consider the great question posed by all truly realistic fiction: What is reality and how can it be confronted? . . . Esther Greenwood's account of her year in the bell jar is as clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing.' (New York Times Book Review)

In 1961, Sylvia Plath began the story of Esther Greenwood, a gifted American and college coed trapped in the airless bell jar of 1950’s womanhood. Tumbling into madness and attempting suicide, Esther is institutionalized and treated with psychotherapy and electro-shock therapy. She recovers, having no answers but aware of her own confusion and rage. Part of the story is about Plath’s own 1953 breakdown, attempted suicide and recovery. This book, The Bell Jar, became an influential cult classic – it became pioneering and profound. Today the story stands on its own as a monumental achievement and a classic of modern literature, according to the publisher.

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.