I read this out of a sense of duty to my college self. I’m glad I got it out of the way. It’s definitely a painful and honest glimpse into depression and how stupidly it was treated in the late 40s, and a lot of Plath’s insights resonated with me. Wish we’d seen her older reflections upon this book, to see if she’d outgrown the period-appropriate racism and homophobia… anyway, glad I finished it.

While this is a worthwhile book if anyone has an interest in depression at the psychotic level, schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, etc., I wouldn't recommend it to those not leaning in that direction. The book asks an almost unanswerable question about the relationship between literary genius and madness, and quotes much relevant scholarship. The bulk of the book is material about individual writers from the 14th to the 20th centuries weaving information about their antecedents (many of whom were described as insane), their upbringing (often idiosyncratic to point of abuse and/or neglect, and their adult personal and professional lives. The authors then make a tentative diagnosis of what label might best fit the person in question, taking cultural and historical factors into consideration.
It does not in any glamorize madness (to use a generic term) and the havoc it wreaks both on the sufferers and most people in their lives.