October 27, 1932 Sylvia Plath born to Aurelia Schober Plath, first generation American of Austrian descent, and Otto Emile Plath, emigré from Grabow in the Polish corridor. Otto Plath was a professor at Boston University; his specialty: entomology. Aurelia was approximately 20 years younger than her husband.
1935 Brother, Warren Joseph Plath, is born.
1937 The Plath family moves to Winthrop, Massachusetts.
1938 Sylvia begins public school at Winthrop and receives all A's; she is a model student.
November 5, 1940 Otto Plath dies of pneumonia and complications from diabetes.
1940–41 Aurelia Plath teaches secretarial studies at Boston University.
1942 Aurelia Plath moves her family, with her parents, to Wellesley.
1944 Sylvia enters Alice L. Phillips Junior High School.
1945 Plath's poem "The Spring Parade" published in the school's literary magazine.
1945–46 Other literary publications in The Phillipian, the school’s literary magazine.
1947 Plath wins Honorable Mention in The National Scholastic Literary contest. During these years her I.Q. tests in the 160s, and she meets a classmate, Richard Willard (a fictional name), who will continue with her in school. Later, she dates his older brother, "Buddy."
1950 Plath enters Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, on a scholarship. During this period, Buddy Willard asks her to the Yale prom.
1952 Plath wins the Mademoiselle fiction contest.
Summer, 1953 Plath is guest editor at Mademoiselle.
Late Summer, 1953 Plath attempts suicide with sleeping pills. She is found and taken to Newton-Wellesley Hospital.
1953 (5 months) Plath resides at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Massachusetts, and is treated with insulin and electro-shock therapy.
February, 1954 Plath returns to Smith.
1955 Plath graduates, goes to England on a Fuibright scholarship.
1956 Plath meets Ted Hughes in February; marries him June 16 (Bloomsbury Day).
1956–57 Plath's second Cambridge year; English country trips.
1957–58 Returns to America with Hughes. Instructor in English, Smith College.
1958–59 Takes a hospital clerical job in Boston after quitting her Smith position to devote more time to writing. Plath also enrolls in Robert Lowell's poetry seminar and meets the poet Anne Sexton.
Fall, 1959 Plath writes at Yaddo, the writers retreat at Saratoga Springs, New York. In the winter, she and Ted return to England.
1960 Frieda Rebecca, born at home, April 1, London. November: The Colossus published in England.
1961 Plath suffers a miscarriage and has an appendectomy.
January 17, 1962 Nicholas Farrar born. The Colossus published in the United States.
September, 1962 Ted leaves Sylvia.
December, 1962 Plath moves to London, to a house once resided in by the poet William Butler Yeats.
January, 1963 The Bell Jar, published under the name Victoria Lucas, appears to generally favorable reviews.
February 11, 1963 Plath commits suicide in her London flat by turning on the gas jets.
1965 Ariel published in London.
1966 Ariel published in the United States.
1971 The Bell Jar published in the United States with Plath's name as author.
1981 Collected Poems published in the United States.
Journals published in the United States.
1998 Ted Hughes breaks his silence about his marriage to Sylvia Plath by publishing Birthday Letters, a collection of poems about their relationship. He dies that same year.
2000 The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath published.
