- She is one of the major female poets of the 20th century. Her poetic books "Colossus" and "Ariel" and her novel "The Bell Jar" are largely autobiographical works, the latter dealing with her struggle with depression and mental illness.
- Her critically acclaimed novel, "The Bell Jar" was so frankly autobiographical, that Plath published it only in England at first, using the pen name, "Victoria Lucas." It was not until 1971 that the book was published in the USA.
- She had a genius-level IQ of 166, according to a test she took in 1944.
- Nicholas, son of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes, was found hanged on Monday, March 16 2009 in his home in Alaska. He was 47.
- Two children: Nicholas Hughes, a graduate of Oxford in zoology lives in Canada (as of 1999) and works as a marine biologist, and Frieda Hughes, who married Hungarian-born painter Laszlo Lukacs, paints and, like her mother, writes poetry.
- Pictured on one of ten USA nondenominated commemorative postage stamps celebrating "20th Century Poets", issued as a pane of 20 stamps on 21 April 2012. Other stamps in this issued honored Joseph Brodsky, Gwendolyn Brooks, E.E. Cummings, Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Hayden, Denise Levertov, and Theodore Roethke. The price of each stamp on day of issue was 45¢.
- Her first published work was a short story, "And Summer Will Not Come Again, " written while she was in high school.
- Her first national publication was a poem in the Christian Science Monitor, "Bitter Strawberries."
- Two of her better known poems are used at GCSE level in Britain; 'The Arrival of the Bee Box' and 'Medallion'. Both raise her issues about power, dominant in most of her works.
- Daughter of Aurelia Plath.
- Writer James Dickey made the ungracious remark "Suicide attempts and then writing poetry about your suicide attempts is just pure bullshit!" in relation to Sylvia Plath in a Paris Review interview.
- Referenced in the music video for Alt-J's song "Deadcrush".
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