num_pages: 256
description: The Bell Jar is a classic of American literature.  Originally published under the pseudonym "Victoria Lucas" in 1963--only a month before the author's suicide--Sylvia Plath's harrowing autobiographical novel traces a young woman's descent into an emotional breakdown.  The brilliant and disturbing story of Esther Greenwood's journey from the glamorous world of magazine publishing in New York to the isolating world of the asylum has become one of the most famous books of the late twentieth century, and still has all its power to shock and move us.
language: English
title: The Bell Jar
titlecomplete: The Bell Jar
characters: Esther Greenwood, Buddy Willard, Joan Gilling
genres: Literature, Psychology, Classics, Feminism, Literary Fiction, Novels, Mental Illness, Mental Health, Fiction, Poetry
ratings_count: 882463
places: Massachusetts, The United States of America, New York City, New York, New York (State), Boston, Massachusetts
publisher: Knopf