Sylvia Plath made reference to her grandmother by making "Esther Greenwood" the name of the heroine in her semi-autobiographical novel The Bell Jar.
The relationship between Plath and her daughter was a rather problematic and ambiguous one, for on the one hand they were exceptionally close to each other, and on the other hand Sylvia Plath often claimed that she hated her mother.
Their relationship is portrayed in Plath's novel The Bell Jar, and in the poem Medusa.
In 1975, Plath published her daughter's letters from 1950-1963 as Letters Home.
Plath died, aged 87, of complications from Alzheimer's disease in Needham, Massachusetts.