The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath - 1971

VERY GOOD — DUST JACKET: Wear & tear to top and bottom edges of spine, panels, folds and flaps. Very minor chip and small closed tear to bottom of spine, left and right, respectively. Very small chip to laminate face, bottom left of spine. Very minor chipping to top outside corners, both panels. Minor crease to upper left, back flap. BOARDS: Shelf rubbing to top and bottom edges, and foredges, primarily bottom edge. Minor scuffing to outside corners. BOOK: Very good condition. Good topstain, albeit with a few spots. Very slight lean to spine. Please inspect photos closely for condition details.

Here on offer is a very nice copy of Sylvia Plath's semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar, first published in the UK just one month before she took her own life. This copy is a 1st American edition, 1st printing published by Harper & Row in 1971. The dust jacket is protected from further wear by a Mylar sleeve.

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"A realistic and emotional novel about a woman battling mental illness and societal pressures written by the iconic American writer Sylvia Plath.

'It is this perfectly wrought prose and the freshness of Plath's voice in The Bell Jar that make this book enduring in its appeal.' -- USA Today

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: young, brilliant, beautiful, and enormously talented, 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 neurosis becomes completely understandable and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such thorough exploration of the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche - and the profound collective loneliness that modern society has yet to find a solution for - is an extraordinary accomplishment, and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic."

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Sylvia Plath (October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), Ariel (1965), and The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her suicide in 1963. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honour posthumously.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Plath graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts and the University of Cambridge, England, where she was a student at Newnham College. Plath later studied with Robert Lowell at Boston University, alongside poets Anne Sexton and George Starbuck. She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England. Their relationship was tumultuous and, in her letters, Plath alleges abuse at his hands. They had two children before separating in 1962.

Plath was clinically depressed for most of her adult life, and was treated multiple times with early versions of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). She ended her own life in 1963.

The above text was taken from, respectively, HarperCollins publishing (via Google Books) and Wikipedia.