‘If Sylvia Plath hadn't already killed herself, she probably would’ve if she saw the new cover of her only novel The Bell Jar.’
So wrote one feminist blogger after seeing the Faber redesign, which shows a young woman pouting into a cosmetics compact. The ensuing furore has drawn huge attention to the book.
It was featured on BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime during February, providing an opportunity to completely bypass the cover debate and get straight to the content. Andrew Wilson’s biography of Plath’s early life was also published in February, and sheds light on the deeply autobiographical nature of The Bell Jar (1963). Now that readers have re-encountered the text in the context of Plath’s life story, what might the classic work have to say to a new generation of readers?
