The Bell Jar.

PLATH, Sylvia. [Larry Peerce].

Item Number: 135273

New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1971.

First edition of Sylvia Plath’s only novel, signed by Larry Peerce who directed the 1979 film adaptation. Octavo, original half cloth, illustrated with eight pen-and-ink drawings by Plath. Signed by Larry Peerce on the half-title page, “All good wishes, Larry Peerce.” Peerce directed the 1979 film adaptation of The Bell Jar starring Marilyn Hassett and Julie Harris in addition to several other film adaptations of classic novels including A Separate Peace (1972) and Goodbye, Columbus for which he was awarded the Directors Guild of America Award for Best Director. Biographical note by Lois Ames. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Amy Isbey Duevell. An exceptional example.

The Bell Jar chronicles the crack-up of Esther Greenwood: brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under -- maybe for the last time. Sylvia Plath masterfully draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that Esther's insanity becomes completely real and even rational, as probable and accessible an experience as going to the movies. Such deep penetration into the dark and harrowing corners of the psyche is an extraordinary accomplishment and has made The Bell Jar a haunting American classic. "In looking at the madness of the world and the world of madness [this book] forces us to consider the great question posed by all truly realistic fiction: what is reality and how can it be confronted"(New York Times Book Review). It was the basis for Larry Peerce's The Bell Jar (1979) starring Marilyn Hassett as Esther Greenwood, the protagonist and featured the tagline: "Sometimes just being a woman is an act of courage."