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Summary
‘A literary rite of passage.’ The Times
‘She changed our world.’ Guardian
Esther is supposed to be having the time of her life. Her internship at a fashion magazine is a whirl of cocktail parties and dinner dates in the shimmering city. But why doesn’t she feel anything? Back home in the suburbs, she is trapped inside a suffocating bell jar. She can’t write her novel; her boyfriend is a hypocrite; there seems no point in getting out of bed. As she spirals into darkness, her world becomes increasingly unreal …
An unflinchingly honest portrait of a young woman’s breakdown, Sylvia Plath’s iconic The Bell Jar has transformed the lives of millions of readers since it was first published in 1963. Its witty, acidic, razor-sharp voice will stay with you forever.
READ IN AN AUDIOBOOK EDITION BY MAGGIE GYLLENHAAL
ONE OF THE BBC’S ‘100 NOVELS THAT SHAPED OUR WORLD’
Reader responses:
‘Plath’s masterpiece . . . It’s amazing how relevant this book still is.’
‘I just couldn’t put it down.’
‘Ever better than I expected.’
SylviaPlath
Sylvia Plath (1932–63) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and studied at Smith College. In 1955 she went to Cambridge University on a Fulbright scholarship, where she met and later married Ted Hughes. She published one collection of poems in her lifetime, The Colossus (1960), and a novel, The Bell Jar (1963). Her Collected Poems, which contains her poetry written from…
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