The first American edition was published in 1966 and included an introduction by the poet Robert Lowell.

[2] In the same interview, Plath also cited the poet Anne Sexton as an important influence on her writing during this time since Sexton was also exploring some of the same dark, taboo, personal subject matter that Plath was exploring in her writing.

[2] In 2004, a new edition of Ariel was published which for the first time restored the selection and arrangement of the poems as Plath had left them; the 2004 edition also features a foreword by Frieda Hughes, who is the daughter of Plath and Ted Hughes.

Poems marked with an ** were included in Plath's original manuscript, but were removed by Ted Hughes.

Marjorie Perloff said in her article, "The Two Ariels: The (Re)making Of The Sylvia Plath Canon” that “The fact remains that Plath herself had arranged the future Ariel poems ‘in a careful sequence,’ plotting out every detail including the first and last words of the volume.