Sounds from the Bell Jar

This groundbreaking work is a unique collaboration between an Oxford University psychologist and two literary critics. It explores the lives and works of 10 authors – among them Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Plath – who embody both serious mental illness and great originality of thought. The book draws upon personal diaries, historical archives, clinical records and literary productions, and examines modes of thinking – such as divergent thought, over-inclusiveness and autism – that psychosis and creativity might have in common. Using genetics, experimental abnormal and clinical psychology, personality research, descriptive psychiatry and literary analysis, Claridge, Pryor and Watkins present the revolutionary idea that normality and psychosis are continuous with each other. Healthy varieties and styles of thought and perception substantially overlap with the inclination toward psychotic breakdown and, indeed, might at times be identical. Psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, therapists and general readers will gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between madness and creativity from this book.

Gordon Sidney Claridge was a British psychologist and author, best known for his theoretical and empirical work on the concept of schizotypy, or psychosis-proneness.

Ruth Pryor has held teaching and research posts at the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Washington, Seattle; Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University; and the University of Wales. She is the editor of Letters to Vernon Watkins and The Collected Poems of Vernon Watkins.

Gwen Watkins taught at the University of Washington and in the Extra-Mural Department of the University College of Swansea. Her publications include Portrait of a Friend, about Dylan Thomas and Vernon Watkins, and Dickens in Search of Himself.