Draws on exclusive interviews as well as previously unavailable archives to illuminate the writer's life outside of her relationship with Ted Hughes, offering insight into her poetry and prose while revealing the origins of her unique style.

"An engrossing new biography of Sylvia Plath focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual growth and achievement, restoring the vivid creative woman behind the longtime Plath myths perpetuated by a pathology-based approach to her life and art. With a wealth of never-before-accessed materials, Heather Clark here brings to life the brilliant daughter of Wellesley, MA who had poetic ambition from a very young age, and was an accomplished, published...

"In 1963 Sylvia Plath took her own life in her London flat. Her death was the culmination of a brief, brilliant life lived in the shadow of clinical depression--a condition exacerbated by her tempestuous relationship with mercurial poet Ted Hughes. The ensuing years saw Plath rise to martyr status while Hughes was cast as the cause of her suicide, his infidelity at the heart of her demise. For decades, Hughes never bore witness to the truth of their...

In The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 1, 1940-1956, we discover the art of Plath's correspondence. Most of these materials have never before been published, and are presented here unabridged and without revision--so that she can speak directly in her own words. Refreshingly candid and offering intimate details of her personal life, Plath's letters entertain a wide ranges of addressees, including family, friends, and professional contacts, with inimitable...