Poet Sylvia Plath, 1932-1963, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and began writing poetry as a child. She entered Smith College in 1950 and, after an abortive suicide attempt in August of 1953, graduated in 1955. She then attended Newnham College in Cambridge for two years on a Fulbright Fellowship where late in her first year she met and shortly thereafter married poet Ted Hughes. Plath took her degree in June 1957, after which she and Hughes sailed to America for a year of teaching and a second year of writing and travel. In late 1959 they returned to England where Plath lived until her death in February 1963.

Plath's poetry, short stories, and articles were published by various newspapers and magazines, including The Christian Science Monitor, Harper's, Mademoiselle, The New Yorker, Poetry, and Seventeen. Before her death, one book of poetry, The Colossus, appeared in both Great Britain and the United States and her novel, The Bell Jar, was published in Great Britain under the pseudonym Victoria Lucas. Another book of poetry, Ariel, appeared posthumously in 1965 and other poetry has since been published.