"The Bell Jar" was intended to have a sequel

Happy book birthday to The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath.

The semiautobiographical novel came out January 14, 1963, in England, under the name Victoria Lucas.

It was Plath's first novel, and according to Literary Hub, it was supposed to have a sequel.

"My second book will show that same world as seen through the eyes of health," she told her mother, referring to the world depicted in The Bell Jar, the summer before its publication.

Of course, Plath died of suicide on February 11, 1963, and that sequel never materialized.

On a lighter note, to mark the book's release, Lit Hub has rounded up fifty-nine covers from The Bell Jar editions across the globe and the years.

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