Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist, children's author, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry.

Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1932 and educated at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge. She studied with Robert Lowell at Boston University, alongside poets Anne Sexton and George Starbuck.

She married fellow poet Ted Hughes in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England, having two children before separating in 1962. Their relationship was tumultuous, and in her letters, Plath alleges abuse at his hands.

Plath suffered from clinical depression for most of her adulthood and was treated multiple times with early versions of electroconvulsive therapy. She tragically took her own life in 1963.

Sylvia Plath is best known for works such as The Colossus and Other Poems (1960), Ariel (1965), and The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel published shortly before her death. The Collected Poems was published in 1981 and won the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry in 1982, making her the fourth to receive this honor posthumously.