The book begins with a brief Introduction and Chronology before launching into the recycled content broken into three chapters: Background on Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar and Depression, and Contemporary Perspectives on Depression.
Chapter 1 includes "The Life of Sylvia Plath" by Timothy Materer, "Sylvia Plath Was the Personification of American Literature" by Ted Hughes, as told to Drue Heinz, "Sylvia Plath Was a Shining Intellect and a Superb Student" by Dorothea Krook, and "Sylvia Plath's Depression Was Inherited" by Jane Feinmann. I should say that these chapter titles are not the original titles under which the excerpts were printed, but merely summaries.
In Chapter 2 we find "Sylvia Plath’s Retelling of Her Mental Breakdown Lacks Power and Emotion" by Saul Maloff, "Plath Uses Literary Doubles to Depict the Anguish of Her Schizophrenia" by Gordon Lameyer, "Illness Pervades The Bell Jar" by Howard Moss, "The Ending of The Bell Jar Is Cautiously Optimistic" by Caroline King Barnard, "The Bell Jar Examines the Public and Private Worlds of Madness" by Mason Harris, "The Bell Jar Relates a Girl's Search for Identity" by Marjorie G. Perloff, "The Bell Jar Chronicles a Search for Authenticity" by Susan Coyle, "The Bell Jar Illustrates Women's Limited Options" by Mary Allen, and "The Bell Jar Is the Story of Sylvia Plath's Mental Breakdown" by Linda Wagner-Martin.
In Chapter 3, there is "Both Depression and a Risk Factor for Suicide Run in Families" by Paul Fink, "Perfectionism in Gifted Teenagers Can Be Deadly" by Laurie Hyatt, "Unrealistic Pressures and a Lack of Societal Safeguards Cause Depression in Teenage Girls" by Maxine Frith, and "Hard Questions to Ask After a Cry for Help" by Perri Klass.
The book rounds out with a For Further Discussion series of questions, a section called For Further Reading, a Bibliography, and an Index.
Enough with the summary. This book is another instance of an educational/academic publisher making a mistake. The only benefit to this book is that it saves researchers the trouble of looking for each of the pieces individually. However, by reprinting excerpts only, said readers/researchers are at a disadvantage by not seeing all the contextual information from the entire article. And, to boot, there are inconsistencies and errors and little niggling deficiencies galore. Firstly, there is inconsistency in how quotes are presented. Some are in double-quotes (") and some in single quotes ('). Secondly each quote does not have a citation page number reference: so how are students - the target market - supposed to find the quote in the original source? Thirdly, not all the books and sources quoted are listed in the bibliography (for example, Letters Home is quoted in Materer's piece and her Journals are quoted in the Feinemann one, but neither work appears in either the "For Further Reading" section or in the "Bibliography"). Bizarrely, Plath's Ariel and The Collected Poems are listed in the "For Further Reading" and not in the "Bibliography." And as regards the "For Further Reading" and the "Bibliography", I could not figure out the rhyme or reason to having them separated. Oh, maybe if I actually read the one book I could have, but I gave up. Relatedly, the "Bibliography" stinks and the authors are listed unconventionally in alphabetical order: not in "last name, first name" order; but in "first name last name" order. Still related to the Bibliography, for the sources listed that appeared in periodicals: there are no page numbers listed in the citation.
I wish I was done, but I'm not! At the bottom of the first page of each "essay" is a citation. For a couple (Krook, Lameyer), the citation is wrong. Listed as appearing in Edward Butscher's biography Sylvia Plath: Method and Madness (1976), these two essays in fact appeared in his edited book of essays Sylvia Plath: The Woman and the Work (1977). As I have read all the original, full pieces, I can say that they are all interesting and representative of perspectives on The Bell Jar. So, good job on the selection (though admittedly I did not touch chapter 3 "Contemporary Perspectives" and prefer to ignore its existence). Lastly, while the binding of the paperback edition is good, and the cover is nice and glossy, the printing quality of the text is poor. Awful, in fact. The ink is faint in places and the quality of the photographs reprinted is also wanting. Overall I'm glad I didn't pay for it.
Like I said in my review of How to Write About Sylvia Plath , academic publishers have a responsibility to publish good books for their [impressionable] student audience. In Depression in Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar, Gale/Cengage Learning and the Greenhaven Press fail miserably to uphold the burden of their educational obligation.