Sylvia Plath

First U.S. Publication A major literary event--the complete, uncensored journals of Sylvia Plath, published in their entirety for the first time. Sylvia Plath's journals were originally published in 1982 in a heavily abridged version authorized by Plath's husband, Ted Hughes. This new edition is an exact and complete transcription of the diaries Plath kept during the last twelve years of her life. Sixty percent of the book is material that has never before been made public, more fully revealing the intensity of the poet's personal and literary struggles, and providing fresh insight into both her frequent desperation and the bravery with which she faced down her demons. The complete Journals of Sylvia Plath is essential reading for all who have been moved and fascinated by Plath's life and work.

Sylvia Plath's celebrated collection. When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific life but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel. Her husband, Ted Hughes, brought the collection to life in 1966, and its publication garnered worldwide acclaim. This collection showcases the beloved poet’s brilliant, provoking, and always moving poems, including "Ariel" and once again shows why readers have fallen in love with her work throughout the generations.

"By the time of her death, on 11 February, 1963, Sylvia Plath had written a large bulk of poetry. To my knowledge, she never scrapped any of her poetic efforts. With one or two exceptions, she brought every piece she worked on to some final form acceptable to her, rejecting at most the odd verse, or a false head or a false tail. Her attitude to her verse was artisan-like: if she couldn't get a table out of the material, she was quite happy to get a chair, or even a toy. The end product for her was not so much a successful poem, as something that had temporarily exhausted her ingenuity. So this book contains not merely what verse she saved, but-after 1956-all she wrote." -Ted Hughes, from the Introduction

Alternate Cover Edition ISBN: 9755100164 (ISBN13: 9789755100166) Edebiyat dünyasına şiirleriyle ve öyküleriyle giren Amerikalı kadın yazar Sylvia Plath'in yazdığı tek roman. Özgeçmişine dayalı bu romanında yazar, genç bir üniversite öğrencisinin kişisel sorunlarından, bunalımlarından yola çıkarak, McCarthy dönemi Amerika'sının toplumsal sorunlarına uzanır. Plath'ın bu tek romanı, şaşırtıcı bir akıcılığı ve yazma rahatlığını sergiler. Plath'ın keskin gözlem gücü, yerinde eleştirileri, ustalıklı kurgusu, romanın bütün karamsarlığına karşın kasvetli bir bunalım romanı olmasını önler. Üniversitede öğretim üyeliğinin yanı sıra şairliği, yazarlığı ve anneliği bir arada sürdürmeye çalışan Sylvia Plath, art arda gelen hastalıklara karşın koşullarını zorlar. Sırça Fanus Ocak 1963 yılında yayımlanır. Romanın yayımlanmasından bir ay sonra da bu ünlü kadın yazar daha 31 yaşındayken, kendi eliyle yaşamına son verir.

Sylvia Plath's famous collection, as she intended it.When Sylvia Plath died, she not only left behind a prolific life but also her unpublished literary masterpiece, Ariel. When her husband, Ted Hughes, first brought this collection to life, it garnered worldwide acclaim, though it wasn't the draft Sylvia had wanted her readers to see. This facsimile edition restores, for the first time, Plath's original manuscript -- including handwritten notes -- and her own selection and arrangement of poems. This edition also includes in facsimile the complete working drafts of her poem "Ariel," which provide a rare glimpse into the creative process of a beloved writer. This publication introduces a truer version of Plath's works, and will no doubt alter her legacy forever.This P.S. edition features an extra 16 pages of insights into the book, including author interviews, recommended reading, and more.

Sylvia Plath began keeping a diary as a young child. By the time she was at Smith College, when this book begins, she had settled into a nearly daily routine with her journal, which was also a sourcebook for her writing. Plath once called her journal her “Sargasso,” her repository of imagination, “a litany of dreams, directives, and imperatives,” and in fact these pages contain the germs of most of her work. Plath’s ambitions as a writer were urgent and ultimately all-consuming, requiring of her a heat, a fantastic chaos, even a violence that burned straight through her. The intensity of this struggle is rendered in her journal with an unsparing clarity, revealing both the frequent desperation of her situation and the bravery with which she faced down her demons. Written in electrifying prose, The Journals of Sylvia Plath provide unique insight, and are essential reading for all those who have been moved and fascinated by Plath’s life and work.

The poems in this collection were all written in the last nine months of Sylvia Plath's life, and form part of the group from which the 'Ariel' poems were chosen. Her radio play 'Three Women', also included here, was written slightly earlier, in the transitional period between 'The Colossus' and 'Ariel'.

Sylvia Plath was one of the defining voices of the twentieth century, and one of the most appealing: few other poets have introduced as many new readers to poetry. The poems in this fresh and inviting edition were chosen by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy. In my selection, which is roughly chronological to shadow her progress, I have tried to walk through the landscape of Sylvia Plath's poetry as though for the first time, fifty years older than I was when she died. In doing so I have experienced afresh the almost physical excitement I felt when I first read this bold, brilliant, brave poet who changed the world of poetry for us all. - Carol Ann Duffy

Sylvia Plath siempre apunta al corazón. Tres mujeres es un emocionante poema a tres voces que tiene como tema central la maternidad. Cada voz representa una forma de la mujer que centra su realización en ser madre, la que sufre por no poder serlo y la que lo es a su pesar. Sylvia concibió este poema, feminista y antibelicista, para ser leído en voz alta, y en 1962, un año antes de su muerte, lo leyó en la BBC. La experiencia supuso un cambio de dirección en su forma de afrontar la escritura. Desde entonces concebiría los poemas «en voz alta», cambiando de forma definitiva su técnica poética. «Es el poema más poderoso de su obra. Es exquisito y tiene la capacidad de llegar al corazón. [...] Plath ha puesto voz a nuestras más íntimas pesadillas» Joyce Carol Oates

Containing everything that celebrated poet Sylvia Plath wrote after 1956, this is one of the most comprehensive collections of her work. Edited, annotated, and with an introduction by Ted Hughes.

This selection of Sylvia Plath's poetry - chosen by Ted Hughes - shows Plath to be a major poet of the 20th century.

«The Bell Jar surgiu em Inglaterra, em 1963 com autoria atribuída a Victoria Lucas. O motivo que terá levado Sylvia Plath a recorrer a um pseudónimo, prende-se com a óbvia coincidência existente entre personagens, eventos e lugares ali descritos, e a realidade biográfica da autora. Essa confusão entre realidade e ficção tem servido, ao longo dos anos, a uma vasta panóplia de equívocos que mais não fizeram do que dissimular o lugar da sua obra poética e narrativa na literatura anglo-americana contemporânea.» Do Posfácio

Free online poetry. From Random House's Boldtype. Excerpted from The Voice of the Poet: Sylvia Plath by Sylvia Plath.

Daddy By Sylvia Plath You do not do, you do not do Any more, black shoe In which I have lived like a foot For thirty years, poor and white, Barely daring to breathe or Achoo. Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time—— Marble-heavy, a bag full of God, Ghastly statue with one gray toe Big as a Frisco seal And a head in the freakish Atlantic Where it pours bean green over blue In the waters off beautiful Nauset. I used to pray to recover you. Ach, du. In the German tongue, in the Polish town Scraped flat by the roller Of wars, wars, wars. But the name of the town is common. My Polack friend Says there are a dozen or two. So I never could tell where you Put your foot, your root, I never could talk to you. The tongue stuck in my jaw. It stuck in a barb wire snare. Ich, ich, ich, ich, I could hardly speak. I thought every German was you. And the language obscene An engine, an engine Chuffing me off like a Jew. A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. I began to talk like a Jew. I think I may well be a Jew. The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna Are not very pure or true. With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack I may be a bit of a Jew. I have always been scared of you, With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. And your neat mustache And your Aryan eye, bright blue. Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You—— Not God but a swastika So black no sky could squeak through. Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you. You stand at the blackboard, daddy, In the picture I have of you, A cleft in your chin instead of your foot But no less a devil for that, no not Any less the black man who Bit my pretty red heart in two. I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I tried to die And get back, back, back to you. I thought even the bones would do. But they pulled me out of the sack, And they stuck me together with glue. And then I knew what to do. I made a model of you, A man in black with a Meinkampf look And a love of the rack and the screw. And I said I do, I do. So daddy, I’m finally through. The black telephone’s off at the root, The voices just can’t worm through. If I’ve killed one man, I’ve killed two—— The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know. Daddy, you can lie back now. There’s a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through.

Sylvia Plath, voce tra le più potenti e limpide della letteratura americana, dopo la tragica morte divenne rapidamente e a lungo rimase un simbolo delle rivendicazioni femministe. Educata ai rigidi valori della società statunitense, nella sua breve vita la Plath riuscì a coniugare potenza espressiva e realizzazione estrema di sé, evadendo dalle sbarre imposte dalla condizione di "moglie" e trovando proprio in questo tentativo di superamento la suprema forza creativa. Nei suoi versi il tono è assoluto, ogni parola, e ciò che essa rappresenta, non potrebbe essere altrimenti: «suono e senso» scrive Seamus Heaney nel brano che introduce il volume «si alzano come una marea dalla lingua per trascinare l'espressione individuale su una corrente più forte e profonda di quanto l'individuo potesse prevedere». In tutto il percorso lirico della Plath, e fino alle perfette composizioni di Ariel, istanze psicologiche, biografiche e poetiche si fondono con un tono di libertà e perentorietà unico, un senso di urgenza e spontaneità che emerge dalla disciplina di metro, metafore, rime con la potenza di un fiat, con l'euforia di una mente che crea e supera il dolore personale, per approdare a un sentimento stupefatto, meravigliato dell'esistere.

A la fama mundial de Sylvia Plath (Boston, 1932-Londres, 1963) contribuyeron en un primer lugar el eco de su trágica vida y su muerte voluntaria, así como su condición de mujer emblemática, pero son sus poemas, su perfección en el uso de la metáfora y su personal lenguaje lo que ha hecho de Plath un símbolo.

Publicada inicialmente bajo seudónimo poco después del suicidio de su autora, La campana de cristal es la crónica de un año en la vida de Esther Greenwood (que viaja a Nueva York para introducirse en el mundo de la moda), el año de su depresión nerviosa y la terapia profesional siguiente, con ocasionales saltos en el tiempo hacia su época de estudiante, hasta la reintegración final de la protagonista en el mundo. En palabras de Robert Scholes publicadas en New York Times Books Review, «esta novela contempla la locura del mundo y el mundo de la locura y nos fuerza a considerar el gran interrogante planteado por toda verdadera ficción realista: ¿qué es la realidad y cómo enfrentarse a ella?»

Paperback. 14,00 / 21,50 cm. In Turkish. 460 p. "Sadece içimde susmak istemeyen bir ses oldugu için yaziyorum." - Sylvia Plath "Benim hayatimin amaci ne ve onunla ne halt edecegim? Bilmiyorum ve korkuyorum. Asla istedigim bütün kitaplari okuyamayacagim; olmak istedigim bütün insanlar olamayacagim ve yasamak istedigim bütün hayatlari yasayamayacagim. Kendimi istedigim bütün becerileri edinecek kadar egitemeyecegim. Bunlari neden istiyorum? Hayatimda mümkün olan zihinsel ve fiziksel tecrübelerin tüm renklerini, tonlarini ve çesitlerini tatmak ve hissetmek istiyorum. Ve korkunç derecede sinirliyim… Ugrunda yasayacagim çok sey var, yine de anlasilmasi mümkün olmayacak kadar hasta ve üzgünüm." Sadece otuz yil yasadi Sylvia Plath ve bu otuz yila firtinali bir hayat ve unutulmaz eserler sigdirdi. 1963 yilinda hayatina kendi eliyle son vermesinden sonra esi Ted Hughes'un büyük kismini sansürleyerek ilk kez yayimlattigi Günlükler, yillar sonra özgün haliyle yayimlanmisti. Elinizdeki kitap da bu ikinci versiyonun tamamina yakin kismini içeriyor. Plath'in hayatinin son on iki yilini kapsayan günlükleri onun özelindeki ve edebi alandaki mücadelelerini veriyor ve okura onu tanimak için genis pencereler açiyor. Günlükler, bu özgün yazari tanimak ve yapitlarini daha iyi anlamak isteyenler için essiz bir basvuru kaynagi, hayranlari için vazgeçilmez bir basucu kitabi.

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.

Sylvia Plath es una de las poetas más admiradas y leídas del siglo XX. Sus versos, que a lo largo de los años han ido cobrando protagonismo, especialmente después de que se quitara la vida a los treinta años, son un intento de expresar su desesperación y su obsesión por la muerte. Sus poemas pueden considerarse en gran parte autobiográficos y exploran su angustia mental, su problemático matrimonio con el poeta Ted Hughes y los conflictos sin resolver con sus padres, así como la visión que tenía de ella misma. Plath se ha ido perfilando hasta el día de hoy como uno de los grandes iconos del feminismo, y su poesía —en especial El coloso y el póstumo Ariel—, una valiosa prueba de que fue una de las grandes escritoras del pasado siglo. Cincuenta años después, sus versos todavía contienen toda su intensidad, dolor y belleza. Presentamos esta nueva edición de su poesía completa, en la cuidada traducción de Xoán Abeleira, uno de los mayores conocedores de la obra de Plath.

Dos subúrbios de Boston para uma prestigiosa universidade para moças. Do campus para um estágio em Nova York. O mundo parecia estar se abrindo para Esther Greenwood, entre o trabalho na redação de uma revista feminina e uma intensa vida social. No entanto, um verão aparentemente promissor é o gatilho da crise que levaria a jovem do glamour da Madison Avenue a uma clinica psiquiátrica. A Biblioteca Azul lança uma nova edição de A redoma de vidro, único romance da poeta americana Sylvia Plath. O título retorna às livrarias com tradução do escritor Chico Mattoso 51 anos depois da primeira publicação e do suicídio da autora, em 1963. Lançado semanas antes da morte da poeta, o livro é repleto de referências autobiográficas. A narrativa é inspirada nos acontecimentos do verão de 1952, quando Silvia Plath tentou o suicídio e foi internada em uma clínica psiquiátrica. A obra foi publicada na Inglaterra sob o pseudônimo Victoria Lucas, para preservar as pessoas que inspiraram seus personagens. Assim como a protagonista, a autora foi uma estudante com um histórico exemplar que sofreu uma grave depressão. Muitas questões de Esther retratam as preocupações de uma geração pré-revolução sexual, em que as mulheres ainda precisavam escolher se priorizavam a profissão ou a família, mas A redoma de vidro segue atual. Além da elegância da prosa de Plath, o livro extrai sua força da forma corajosa como trata a doença mental. Sutilmente, a autora apresenta ao leitor o ponto de vista de quem vivencia o colapso. Esther tem uma visão muito crítica, às vezes ácida, da sociedade e de si mesma, mas aos poucos a indiferença se instaura, distanciando a moça do mundo à sua volta. “Me sentia muito calma e muito vazia, do jeito que o olho de um tornado deve se sentir, movendo-se pacatamente em meio ao turbilhão que o rodeia”. Ao lidar com sua depressão, Esther também realiza a transição de menina para uma jovem mulher. Mais que um relato sobre problemas mentais, A redoma de vidro é uma narrativa singular acerca das dores do amadurecimento.

Faber Stories, a landmark series of individual volumes, presents masters of the short story form at work in a range of genres and styles. Lips the colour of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like 'guilt, and guilt, and guilt': these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom. 'But what is the ninth kingdom?' she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. 'It is the kingdom of the frozen will,' comes the reply. 'There is no going back.' Sylvia Plath's strange, dark tale of independence over infanticide, written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion. Bringing together past, present and future in our ninetieth year, Faber Stories is a celebratory compendium of collectable work.

این کتاب شامل دو داستان از دو قله‌ی ادبیات جهان در قرن بیستم است. جانی پنیک و انجیل رؤیاها در ۱۹۶۸، پنج سال پس از مرگ سیلویا پلات در ماهنامه‌ی آتلانتیک منتشر شد. داستانی روانکاوانه که زوایای تاریک و ناشناخته‌ی ذهن حساس شاعر بزرگ آمریکایی را آشکار می‌کند.

With this startling, exhilarating book of poems, which was first published in 1960, Sylvia Plath burst into literature with spectacular force. In such classics as "The Beekeeper's Daughter," "The Disquieting Muses," "I Want, I Want," and "Full Fathom Five," she writes about sows and skeletons, fathers and suicides, about the noisy imperatives of life and the chilly hunger for death. Graceful in their craftsmanship, wonderfully original in their imagery, and presenting layer after layer of meaning, the forty poems in The Colossus are early artifacts of genius that still possess the power to move, delight, and shock.

Un relato inédito de Sylvia Plath. Edición ilustrada de una historia alegórica y oscura sobre la liberación femenina. Mary se despide de sus padres en la estación. Tiene que coger un tren con destino a un misterioso noveno reino, aunque ella no se siente preparada para viajar y dejar su familia atrás. Finalmente, ante las insistencias de sus padres, sube, y entabla conversación con una mujer mayor que parece haber hecho el mismo viaje muchas veces: algo realmente inusual. Lo que empieza como una historia inocente se convierte gradualmente en una pesadilla siniestra, donde el significado del viaje se adivina detrás de cada línea de diálogo y detrás de los enigmáticos razonamientos de esa mujer que acompaña a Mary en su viaje de descubrimiento, terror y liberación. Sylvia Plath escribió este escalofriante relato cuando tenía veinte años; una maravillosa muestra del talento de la autora, que más tarde aplicaría a sus poemas y a su novela, La campana de cristal.

"What I fear most, I think, is the death of the imagination.... If I sit still and don't do anything, the world goes on beating like a slack drum, without meaning. We must be moving, working, making dreams to run toward; the poverty of life without dreams is too horrible to imagine."-- Sylvia Plath, from "Notebooks, February 1956"Renowned for her poetry, Sylvia Plath was also a brilliant writer of prose. This collection of short stories, essays, and diary excerpts highlights her fierce concentration on craft, the vitality of her intelligence, and the yearnings of her imaginaton. Featuring an introduction by Plath's husband, the late British poet Ted Hughes, these writings also reflect themes and images she would fully realize in her poetry. "Jonny Panic and the Bible of Dreams" truly showcases the talent and genius of Sylvia Plath.

Crossing the Water and Winter Trees contain the poems written during the exceptionally creative period of the last years of Sylvia Plath's life. Published posthumously in 1971, they add a startling counterpoint to Ariel, the volume that made her reputation. Readers will recognise some of her most celebrated poems - 'Childless Woman', 'Mirror', 'Insomniac' - while discovering those still overlooked, including her radio play Three Women. These two extraordinary volumes find their place alongside The Colossus and Ariel in the oeuvre of a singular talent. 'Nearly all the poems here have the familiar Plath daring, the same feel of bits of frightened, vibrant, indignant consciousness translated instantly into words and images that blend close, experienced horror and icy, sardonic control.' Alan Brownjohn, New Statesman

In un albergo di New York per sole donne, Esther, diciannovenne di provincia, studentessa brillante, vincitrice di un soggiorno offerto da una rivista di moda, incomincia a sentirsi "come un cavallo da corsa in un mondo senza piste". Intorno a lei, sopra di lei, l'America spietata, borghese e maccartista degli anni Cinquanta. Un mondo alienato, una vera e propria campana di vetro che schiaccia la protagonista sotto il peso della sua protezione, togliendole a poco a poco l'aria. L'alternativa sarà abbandonarsi al fascino soave della morte o lasciarsi invadere la mente dalle onde azzurre dell'elettroshock. Pubblicato nel 1963, un mese prima del suicidio dell'autrice, La campana di vetro è l'unico romanzo di Sylvia Plath. Fortemente autobiografico, narra con stile limpido e teso e con una semplicità agghiacciante le insipienze, le crudeltà incoscienti, i tabù assurdi capaci di spezzare qualunque adolescenza presa nell'ingranaggio stritolante di una normalità che ignora la poesia.

Letters Home represents Sylvia Plath's correspondence from her time at Smith College in the early fifties, through her meeting with, and subsequent marriage to, the poet Ted Hughes, up to her death in February 1963. The letters are addressed mainly to her mother, with whom she had an extremely close and confiding relationship, but there are also some to her brother Warren and her benefactress Mrs Prouty. Plath's energy, enthusiasm and her passionate tackling of life burst onto these pages, providing us with a vivid and intimate portrait of a woman who has come to be regarded as one of the greatest of twentieth-century poets. In addition to her capacity for domestic and writerly happiness, however, these letters also hint at Plath's potential for deep despair, which reached its crisis when she holed up in a London flat for the terrible winter of 1963.

The second volume in the definitive, complete collection of the letters of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Sylvia Plath, from the early years of her marriage to Ted Hughes to the final days leading to her suicide in 1963, many never before seen. One of the most talented and beloved poets, Sylvia Plath continues to fascinate and inspire the modern literary imagination. The tragedy of her untimely death at age thirty, almost fifty-five years ago, has left much unknown about her creative and personal life. In this remarkable second volume of the iconic poet and writer’s collected letters, the full range of Plath’s ambitions, talents, fears, and perspective is made visible through her own powerful words. As engaging as they are revealing, these remarkable letters cover the years from 1957 to 1963. They detail the last six tumultuous and prolific years of her life, covering her marriage to Ted Hughes, the births of her children Frieda and Nicholas, her early success, including the publication of the classic The Bell Jar, and her ongoing struggle with depression. The first compendium of its kind to include all of Plath’s letters from this period, The Letters of Sylvia Plath Volume 2 offers an intimate portrait of the writing life and mind of one of the most celebrated poets in literary history. One of Kirkus’s best books of 2018

Sylvia Plath's renown as one of the twentieth century's most influential poets is beyond dispute, but she was also one of its most captivating correspondents. This remarkable, collected edition of Plath's letters is a work of immense scholarship and care, presenting a comprehensive and historically accurate text of the known and extant letters that she wrote to over one hundred and twenty correspondents, including her husband the poet Ted Hughes, to whom previously unseen letters are now revealed. The edition reproduces previously unknown photographs, and a gathering of Plath's own elegant line drawings taken from the letters she sent to her friends and family, offering the reader generous insight into the life of one of our most significant poets.

Cînd, în 1953, Esther Greenwood cîştigă „un concurs al unei reviste de modă, scriind eseuri şi nuvele şi poezii şi reclame de modă”, e fericită: crede că în sfîrşit visul ei de a deveni scriitoare se va împlini. Dar, între cocktailuri şi grămezile de manuscrise, Esther simte că viaţa începe să-i scape din mîini. Pe măsură ce încearcă să răzbată prin şirul relaţiilor dificile şi al pretenţiilor unei societăţi ce refuză să ia în serios aspiraţiile femeii, ea se trezeşte prinsă în vîrtejul depresiei şi al tentaţiei sinuciderii. Clopotul de sticlă este un roman al rătăcirii şi regăsirii, al înstrăinării şi redescoperirii de sine, al agoniei şi al aparentei vindecări. Uimind prin ritm şi umor, prin dezinvoltură şi ironie, cartea rămîne, înainte de orice, o ego-grafie a unuia dintre cele mai zbuciumate suflete feminine ale secolului XX.

A vulnerable young girl wins a dream assignment on a big-time New York fashion magazine and finds herself plunged into a nightmare. An autobiographical account of Sylvia Plath's own mental breakdown and suicide attempt, The Bell Jar is more than a confessional novel, it is a comic but painful statement of what happens to a woman's aspirations in a society that refuses to take them seriously... a society that expects electroshock to cure the despair of a sensitive, questioning young artist whose search for identity becomes a terrifying descent toward madness. "A fine novel, as bitter and remorseless as her last poems -- the kind of book Salinger's Fanny might have written about herself ten years later, if she had spent those ten years in Hell." -- Robert Scholes, The New York Times Book Review. "By turns funny, harrowing, crude, ardent and artless. Its most notable quality is an astonishing immediacy, like a series of snapshots taken at high noon." -- Time. "A special poignance... a special force, a humbling power, because it shows the vulnerability of people of hope and good will." -- Newsweek.

Never before published, this newly discovered story by literary legend Sylvia Plath stands on its own and is remarkable for its symbolic, allegorical approach to a young woman's rebellion against convention and forceful taking control of her own life. Written while Sylvia Plath was a student at Smith College in 1952, Mary Ventura and The Ninth Kingdom tells the story of a young woman's fateful train journey. Lips the color of blood, the sun an unprecedented orange, train wheels that sound like "guilt, and guilt, and guilt" these are just some of the things Mary Ventura begins to notice on her journey to the ninth kingdom."But what is the ninth kingdom?" she asks a kind-seeming lady in her carriage. "It is the kingdom of the frozen will," comes the reply. "There is no going back."Sylvia Plath's strange, dark tale of female agency and independence, written not long after she herself left home, grapples with mortality in motion.

Esther Greenwood, a talented and successful writer, finally succumbs to madness when the world around her begins to falter