Sylvia Plath’s only published novel, The Bell Jar, was originally published in England under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas in 1963. That was the same year in which she committed suicide. Here we’ll explore quotes from The Bell Jar, an influential modern novel that took mental illness head on in a chronicle both terrifying and tender.

Born in 1932, Plath, the gifted American poet, struggled with chronic depression and made no pretense of concealing her pain in her writings. Her poetry is considered part of the frank and revelatory “confessional movement.”

The Bell Jar wasn’t published in the U.S. until 1971, in accordance with the wishes of Ted Hughes, to whom she had been married at the time of her death (though they were separated at the time). From the 1971 Harper and Row edition: Read More→