7. Plath’s great novel, The Bell Jar, was harshly rejected by the very publishers who paid her to write it
Despite suffering from an intense depression, Plath still managed to finish her first – and only – novel while struggling as a single mother in her freezing London flat. She was helped by a fellowship from the publisher Harper & Row. The $2,080 she received from them allowed her to write The Bell Jar. When she submitted it to them, however, it was dismissed. One editor even called it “disappointing, juvenile and overwrought”. After much effort, Plath finally succeeded in having The Bell Jar published in the UK in January 1963.
