Sylvia Plath, the poet and novelist who took her own life in 1963, is to be commemorated in America on a stamp.

British admirers of the writer, the first wife of the late poet laureate Ted Hughes, have been calling for a memorial to her here for several years. Last year the Observer reported on efforts to raise funds to tend her small gravestone in a cemetery in the Yorkshire village of Heptonstall. Tourists and fans were said to be surprised to find the grave battered and unkempt.

"It is a wonderful thing to see her being properly remembered in America," said Plath's friend Elizabeth Sigmund, 83. She befriended the poet when they were both young mothers living in Devon in the early 1960s and Plath dedicated her highly acclaimed novel The Bell Jar to her friend.

The United States Post Office will be commemorating the lives of nine other leading American poets alongside Plath. The photograph of Plath used on the stamp was taken by Rollie McKenna.

Plath gassed herself at the age of 30 after her husband left to live with their friend, Assia Wevill. Hughes was vilified by Plath's followers and her grave became a contested site. The name "Hughes" was repeatedly hacked away from her headstone.