The Collected Poems

Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) was an American poet, novelist, and author best known for advancing confessional poetry through collections like The Colossus and Other Poems and Ariel, and her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, she graduated from Smith College summa cum laude and Newnham College, Cambridge on a Fulbright, and married poet Ted Hughes in 1956, with whom she had two children before separating. She published her first poetry collection in 1960, experienced severe depression leading to suicide attempts, and died by suicide in London at age 30; posthumously, she won the Pulitzer Prize for The Collected Poems in 1982.