By the time of her suicide at the age of thirty in 1963, poet and novelist Sylvia Plath had amassed an extraordinary body of work: dozens of published poems, a copious and rich collection of journals, many letters, short stories, and her popular novel, The Bell Jar. Drawing from several biographies, anthologies, archival research, scholarly assessments, and an interview with a Plath contemporary, biographer Connie Ann Kirk traces the poet’s turbulent life and career.