PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST The highly anticipated biography of Sylvia Plath that focuses on her remarkable literary and intellectual achievements, while restoring the woman behind the long-held myths about her life and art.

One of the most beautiful biographies I've ever read." Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller, Untamed

A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Century

With a wealth of never-before-accessed materials, Heather Clark brings to life the brilliant Sylvia Plath, who had precocious poetic ambition and was an accomplished published writer even before she became a star at Smith College. Refusing to read Plath s work as if her every act was a harbinger of her tragic fate, Clark considers the sociopolitical context as she thoroughly explores Plath s world: her early relationships and determination not to become a conventional woman and wife; her troubles with an unenlightened mental health industry; her Cambridge years and thunderclap meeting with Ted Hughes; and much more.

Clark s clear-eyed portraits of Hughes, his lover Assia Wevill, and other demonized players in the arena of Plath s suicide promote a deeper understanding of her final days. Along with illuminating readings of the poems themselves, Clark s meticulous, compassionate research brings us closer than ever to the spirited woman and visionary artist who blazed a trail that still lights the way for women poets the world over.