Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953

"An illuminating biography . . . which floods clarifying light on a chapter of the poet's early life that Plath painted in jaundiced tones in The Bell Jar." —The New York Times, Sunday Styles Feature

On May 31, 1953, twenty-year-old Sylvia Plath arrived in New York City for a one-month stint at "the intellectual fashion magazine" Mademoiselle to be a guest editor for its prestigious annual college issue. Over the next twenty-six days, the bright, blond New England collegian lived at the Bar...