Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems was the first collection of her poetry to feature the same table of contents both in the United Kingdom and the United States. Faber published the book on 28 September 1981. Harper & Row followed on 25 November 1981. Winner of the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, the collection was long overdue, coming a full decade after Crossing the Water and Winter Trees.

The Collected Poems is an excellent, if flawed, book. The collection starts with poems written in 1956 and continues through 1963. The book includes a random selection of 50 "juvenilia" poems and an incomplete list of other pre-1956 poems and notes, which, at times, can be very helpful. Most of Plath's poems are online at this website hosted by Stanford.

The Mortimer Rare Book Room at Smith College holds the working papers for the Collected Poems. These working papers include all known printed versions of the poems, as well as typescripts. It therefore holds copies of poems for which the typescripts are housed at other special collections. Also, it is possible to see and read more poems than were included in the final product.

While it is easier to talk about individual poems and individual collections, a chronological reading of Plath's Collected Poems allows a reader to see a full, sequential growth of Plath as a poet.

That being said, the poems not included in the Collected Poems hinders any attempt to see a "complete" Sylvia Plath.

A "complete" edition of poems by Sylvia Plath would be a welcome addition to Plath scholarship.

Poems copyrighted to Faber & Faber (UK) & HarperCollins (US).

A selection of reviews of The Collected Poems
Bayley, John. "Games with Death and Co." New Statesman. October 2, 1981: 19-20.

Beresford, Anne. "Sylvia Plath." Agenda. Winter-Spring 1982: 109-11.

Bosworth, Patricia. "sweet Revenge." Working Woman. December 1981: 112-13.

Brownjohn, Alan. "A Way out of the Mind." Times Literary Supplement. February 12, 1982:
     105-6.

Chasin, Helen. "What Have You Done? What Have You Done?" Yale Review. Spring 1983:
      426-39.

Christian Science Monitor. December 3, 1982: 14.

Clark, Tom. "Raw Nerves at the Cabaret of Despair." San Francisco Chronicle. October 11, 1981:
      4.

Clemons, Walter. "A Poet's Rage for Perfection." Newsweek. May 3, 1982: 77.

Cotter, James Finn. America. February 27, 1982: 157-8.

Davie, Donald. "Cambridge Theatre." London Review of Books. August 19-September 1, 1982: 17.

Donoghue, Denis. "You could say she had a calling for death." The New York Times Book
      Review. November 22, 1981: 1, 30-1.

Eder, Doris L. "Lady Lazarus Two Decades Later: Sylvia Plath's Collected Poems." Denver
      Quarterly. Spring 1982: 105-11.

Ehrenpreis, Irvin. "The Other Sylvia Plath." New York Review of Books. February 4, 1982: 22-4.

Goldgar, Harry. "'Wind from Hell' Blows Across the Poetry of Sylvia Plath." Times-Picayune.
      January 17, 1982: 12.

Gravil, Richard. British Book News. February 1982: 112-13.

Grosholz, Emily. Hudson Review. Summer 1982: 319-33.

Hansmire, Suzanne. "Pulitzer for Plath thrills mother, teacher." The Wellesley Townsman. April 15,
     1982.

Hinchliffe, Beth. "Sylvia Plath-legacy lives in wake of tragedy." The Wellesley Townsman. April 2,
      1981.

Huckaby, Mary Pjerrou. "Plath: Present at the Creation." Los Angeles Times. January 3, 1982: 7.

Hulse, Michael. "Formal Bleeding." The Spectator. November 14, 1981: 20.

Jacobsen, Josephine. "Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton: Enduring Poetic Voices." Washington Post.
      November 22, 1981: 6.

Kilgore, Kathryn. "Rituals of Self-Hatred, Arts of Survival." Village Voice Literary Supplement.
      December 1981: 20, 30.

Larkin, Philip. "Horror Poet." Poetry Review. April 1982: 51-3.

Lerner, Laurence. "Sylvia Plath." Encounter. January 1982: 64-7.

McCloskey, Mark. Magill's Literary Annual. 1982: 96-9.

Nye, Robert. The Times of London. October 22, 1981: 11.

The Observer. December 6, 1981: 25.

Pollitt, Katha. "A Note of Triumph." Nation. January 16, 1982: 52-5.

Pritchard, William H. "An interesting minor poet?" New Republic. December 30, 1981: 32-5.

Ratiner, Steven. "New collections reveal development of poets Plath and Sexton." The Christian
      Science Monitor. January 27, 1982: 15.

Reid, Christopher. "The 'I' and the Ear." The Observer. November 1, 1981: 33.

Ricks, Christopher. "The Black Luck of Sylvia Plath." Sunday Times of London. October 11, 1981:
     42.

Robb, Christina. "Plath's painful story seen in her poems." The Boston Globe. December 4, 1981.

Roberts, Neil. "Sylvia Plath Collected." English. Spring 1982: 73-9.

Schaeffer, Susan Fromberg. "Plath's Poems Resurrect Her from Shadows of Myth." Chicago
      Tribune. December 20, 1981: 1, 5.

Schwarz, Mary. "A Cupful of Words." National Review. February 19, 1982: 177-8.

Smith, Dave. "Sylvia Plath and the Electric Horse." American Poetry Review. January 1982: 43-6.

Stuewe, Paul. Quill and Quire. April 1982: 33.

Vendler, Helen. "An Intractable Metal." New Yorker. February 15, 1982: 124-38.

Virginia Quarterly. Spring 1982: 58.

Williamson, Alan. "Confession and Tragedy." Poetry. JUne 1983: 170-8.

Wittlinger, Ellen. Library Journal. November 1, 1981: 2142-3.