"The Bell Jar" published - January 14, 1963

On this day in 1963, "The Bell Jar," the only novel poet Sylvia Plath wrote, was first published.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio Quick Morning Before we start the show. Today's
episode contains mention of suicide. Hey y'all, I'm Eves and
you're listening to This Day in History Class, a podcast
for people interested in the big and small moments in history. Today.
It's January. The day was January four, nineteen sixty three.

(00:33):
The Bell Jar, the only novel written by poet Sylvia Plath,
was first published under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. Sylvia Plath
was born in nineteen thirty two in Boston. Her father
died when she was a child, and many of her
poems reflect her feelings about her father and his death.
By the time she was a teenager, she was publishing
stories in poems and magazines. While attending Smith College, Plath

(00:58):
one a fiction contest and got a guest editorship at
the magazine Mademoiselle. At the same time, she was dealing
with depression. After she attempted suicide at age twenty, she
was hospitalized and treated with electroshock therapy. Plath went back
to Smith after being hospitalized and graduated. She then studied

(01:18):
at Cambridge University on a Fulbright fellowship. There, she met
Ted Hughes, whom she married in nineteen fifty six and
later had two children with. Plath went on to teach
English at Smith College and published a collection of poems
called The Colossus. Though she was praised for the craft
and imagery of her poetry, she was also criticized for

(01:40):
lacking a personal voice. Later, though, her poetry became less
buttoned up and more candid. Her other major work, The
Bell Jar, was first published in London on January four,
nineteen sixty three. Plath had a hard time finding an
American publisher for it, and it was British publisher Will
Hyeman who ended up accepting it. She used the pseudonym

(02:04):
Victoria Lucas to keep from outing the people she fictionalized
and to separate it from her other literary works. Plath
wanted to write something like The Snake Pit, a semi
autobiographical book by author Mary Jane Ward about a woman's
recovery from mental illness. The Bell Jar is also a
semi autobiographical novel, as it's based on her experiences of

(02:26):
hospitalization and recovery. It's about a woman named Esther Greenwood
who longs to become a poet as she struggles with
societal expectations placed on women as well as her writing career.
Esther becomes depressed. The story follows Esther as she goes
through treatment and into recovery. The book received some lukewarm

(02:49):
in some positive reviews. Today, it's recognized as a book
that touches on themes of redemption, identity, gender, and the
oppressions of contemporary American society. Plath had a huge burst
of creative energy and wrote prolifically at the end of
her life, but less than a month after The Bell
Jar was published, Plath died by suicide. She had been

(03:11):
sick and left to take care of her children after
she and her husband separated, and she was still struggling
with mental illness. Some of her work was published posthumously,
including the poetry collections Aerial Winter Trees and Crossing the Water.
I'm Eve Chef Coote and hopefully you know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. If you're

(03:33):
hungry for more history, you can find us on Twitter, Facebook,
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you can send your thoughts are comments to us at
this Day at I Heart Media. Dot com. Thanks for listening.
We'll see you here again tomorrow with another episode. Yeah.

(04:01):
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