The Bell Jar (P.S.)

Paperback | 244 pages

Harper Perennial Modern Classics
Sylvia Plath’s shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel of a woman falling into the grips of insanity

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 insanity 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.

Staff Pick by Carlos: 

TW: Attempted rape, suicide, and self-harm

"Esther Greenwood is a talented writer with a promising future as she studies in an elite academy. However, the ghosts of her emotional turmoil begin to catch up with her as she starts to unravel. With prose as melodic as her poetry, Plath writes a semi autobiographical novel of a woman struggling in a patriarchal society all too eager to strip her of everything, a haunting sentiment that echoes our modern-day political climate."