The Poems of Sylvia Plath

‘When I think of Sylvia Plath, I am in awe of her intelligence, her language, her wit, her consonantal music - her sheer gift, and what must have been her drive, as its guardian, possessor, possessee, to realise it.‘ Sharon Olds

The Poems of Sylvia Plath is a landmark publication: the definitive edition of the poet’s work for scholars, students and general readers.

Sylvia Plath’s first Collected Poems was published in 1981. This new volume draws on decades of research and almost doubles the content of that edition.

The book is in two parts: the first contains the poems Plath composed in the last ten years of her life and upon which her reputation is founded, and the second includes those poems written in childhood and through her student years. In both sections, the editors have dated, corrected and arranged each poem chronologically, drawing on manuscripts, typescripts and related archival material. Critical notes document and cast new light on Plath’s extraordinary evolution as a poet, from her childhood compositions, through the early blossoming of her talent and ambition, and into the molten core that was to shape the poems of her last few years, securing her place in literary history.