It is time for HarperCollins to reset and reissue Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar . (Faber needs to do this too though for different reasons .) Get rid of the Foreword by Frances McCullough and eradicate the "Biographical Note" by Lois Ames. Let Plath's novel stand on its own and speak for itself. McCullough's piece is fine and interesting, but the 25th anniversary edition is even nearly 30 years old at this point; and Ames' "contribution" has festered with biographical and factual inaccuracies for more than 53 years.  There are a number of textual problems with the US edition to begin with, as I explored in an essay written in 2012 . But the Biographical Note by the late Lois Ames is in the cross hairs of my ire today. Page numbers here refer to the 1971 edition of the book. On page 282 there are two gaffs that that are shameful. The first is the statement that Plath won the Mademoiselle short fiction contest in August 1951. In fact, she won it in June