Sylvia Plath: Quick Facts

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Oct. 23, 2026

Facts

Also Known As	Victoria Lucas
Born	October 27, 1932 • Boston • Massachusetts
Died	February 11, 1963 (aged 30) • London • England
Awards And Honors	Pulitzer Prize (1982)
Notable Works	“Ariel” • “Crossing the Water” • “Daddy” • “Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams” • “Lady Lazarus” • “Mary Ventura and the Ninth Kingdom” • “The Bell Jar” • “The Collected Poems” • “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath” • “Three Women” • “Winter Trees”
Notable Family Members	spouse Ted Hughes

Photos

Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath at Hughes's family's home in Yorkshire, England, 1956

Sylvia Plath seated indoors in front of bookshelves, wearing a plaid shirt and dark sweater, with long wavy hair, looking at the camera.

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Conrad Aiken.

Conrad Aiken

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William Carlos Williams, wearing glasses and a bow tie, sits indoors holding a book with bookshelves and cabinets in the background, circa 1955.

William Carlos Williams

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Edna Ferber, 1920.

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William Saroyan.

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Rita Dove

Rita Dove

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James Schuyler

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James Baldwin stands against a plain background in a dress shirt and tie, arms crossed, holding a cigarette, looking directly at the camera.

James Baldwin

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Theodore Dreiser

Theodore Dreiser

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Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov

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Stein, Gertrude

Gertrude Stein

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H.D.

H.D.

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McCullers, Carson

Carson McCullers

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Amiri Baraka, c. 1964

Amiri Baraka

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Ana Castillo

Ana Castillo

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Constance Lindsay Skinner

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Mary Austin.

Mary Austin

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Marya Mannes

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Anna Cora Mowatt, engraving from a daguerreotype.

Anna Cora Mowatt

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Ntozake Shange

Ntozake Shange

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Ed Bullins

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4:043 Dickinson, Emily: A Life of Letters, This is my letter to the world/That never wrote to me; I'll tell you how the Sun Rose/A Ribbon at a time; Hope is the thing with feathers/That perches in the soul

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Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) only confirmed photograph of Emily Dickinson. 1978 scan of a Daguerreotype. ca. 1847; in the Amherst College Archives. American poet. See Notes:

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American singer and political activist Joan Baez performing at the Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C., August 28, 1963. Photo by Rowland Scherman. See Content Notes.

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Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) portrait by Carl Van Vecht April 3, 1938. Writer, folklorist and anthropologist celebrated African American culture of the rural South.

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Nobel prize-winning American author, Pearl S. Buck, at her home, Green Hills Farm, near Perkasie, Pennsylvania, 1962. (Pearl Buck)

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