Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

The depression that was endemic in her father's family troubled her during her junior year in high school.  When her mother sought treatment for her, she was given bi-polar electroconvulsive shock treatments as an out-patient. In August 1953, she attempted suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills.

Moving with her children to a London flat in December 1962, Plath tried to make a new life to care for the two infants.  She committed suicide by sleeping pills and gas inhalation in February 1963, just two weeks after the publication of  The Bell Jar (written by "Victoria Lucas").

Plath is an American writer whose best-known poems are noted for their personal imagery and intense focus. Plath wrote only two books before her suicide at the age of 31. Her posthumous Ariel (1965) astonished the literary world with its power, and has become one of the best-selling volumes of poetry published in England and America in the 20th century.  Plath was married to poet Ted Hughes.