A Special Hardcover Edition to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Publication of Sylvia Plath’s Remarkable Novel 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 shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about a woman battling mental illness and societal pressures written by iconic American writer Sylvia Plath. Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under–maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther’s breakdown with such intensity that her neurosis becomes palpably real, even rational–as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.