Sylvia Plath

1932 – 1963 · died at about 31^[1][2]

Literature

Fun Facts About Sylvia Plath

• Sylvia Plath published The Bell Jar under the pen name Victoria Lucas, and her mother had tried to block its publication.^[1]
• Plath won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982 for her Collected Poems, the fourth person to receive the prize posthumously.^[1]
• Plath married poet Ted Hughes only four months after they met, on June 16, 1956, choosing the date in honor of Bloomsday.^[1]
• Plath published her first poem at age eight, in the children's section of the Boston Herald.^[1]
• As a guest editor at Mademoiselle, Plath hung around the White Horse Tavern and the Chelsea Hotel for two days hoping to meet Dylan Thomas, but he was already on his way home.^[1]
• Plath's father, Otto, was an entomologist and Boston University biology professor who wrote a book about bumblebees.^[1]
• Sylvia Plath was alive at the same time as Ernest Rutherford — their lives overlapped for 5 years (1932–1937).^[1][2][3][4]
• Sylvia Plath shares a birthday with Theodore Roosevelt: both were born on October 27.^[1][2][5][6]

Sylvia Plath was an American poet and author. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), Ariel (1965), and The Bell Jar (1963), a semi-autobiographical novel published one month before her suicide. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth person to receive this honor posthumously.^[1]

Contemporaries

Winston Churchill

31 yr overlap

Pablo Picasso

31 yr overlap

Igor Stravinsky

31 yr overlap

Coco Chanel

31 yr overlap

Georgia O'Keeffe

31 yr overlap

Charlie Chaplin

31 yr overlap

Ho Chi Minh

31 yr overlap

Agatha Christie

31 yr overlap

Dwight D. Eisenhower

31 yr overlap

Charles de Gaulle

31 yr overlap

Haile Selassie

31 yr overlap

J.R.R. Tolkien

31 yr overlap

Their World

Questions About Sylvia Plath

When was Sylvia Plath born?

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, and died on February 11, 1963.

How old was Sylvia Plath at death?

Sylvia Plath was born on October 27, 1932, and died on February 11, 1963, at age 30.

What was Sylvia Plath known for?

Sylvia Plath was known for: The Bell Jar, confessional poetry. Sylvia Plath was an American poet and author. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), Ariel (1965), and The Bell Jar (1963), a semi-autobiographical novel published one month before her suicide. The Collected Poems was published in 1981, which included previously unpublished works. For this collection Plath was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth person to receive this honor posthumously.

Who was alive at the same time as Sylvia Plath?

Sylvia Plath's closest contemporary was Winston Churchill. Their lives overlapped for 31 years.