Riding, Laura, 1901-1991

Laura (Riding) Jackson (1901-1991) spent her life in pursuit of truth through poetry and her language work. At the beginning of her career, she associated with the Fugitives, a group of Southern poets and critics, who supported and encouraged her poetry; later she became a close collaborator and intimate of the British poet Robert Graves. But her desire to express absolute truth led her to renounce poetry and turn instead to the study of language. Because of her compulsive individualism, Laura became a controversial figure, considered a madwoman by her detractors or a prophet by her supporters.

From the description of Laura (Riding) Jackson papers, 1938-1966. (University of Maryland Libraries). WorldCat record id: 23685622

James Reeves (pseudonym of John Morris, 1909-1978), poet, critic, and author of children's stories. Laura (Riding) Jackson (1901-1991), poet and critic. The collection was purchased by Cornell University in 1989.

From the description of James Reeves-Laura (Riding) Jackson correspondence, 1933-1940. (Cornell University Library). WorldCat record id: 64749921

Laura Riding was an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and novelist.

From the guide to the Laura Riding collection of papers, 1927-1989, (The New York Public Library. Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature.)

Poet. Born in New York in 1901. Best known for her nine books of poetry published as Collected Works, 1938. Mrs. Jackson was a collaborator of Robert Graves.

From the guide to the Laura (Riding) Jackson Papers, 1970-1978, (Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida)

Laura (Riding) Jackson, poet, critic, and member of "the Fugitives," a group of Southern poets that flourished in the 1930s. Jackson, who also worked closely with Robert Graves on several publishing ventures, was concerned with, among other things, issues of linguistic integrity.

From the description of Laura (Riding) Jackson papers, 1974-1989 (bulk 1982-1989). WorldCat record id: 22875782

Poet, critic, author.

Laura Riding Jackson was born January 16, 1901, in New York, NY. She died on September 2, 1991, in Sebastian, FL. Her name was originally Laura Reichenthal, but adopted the surname Riding in 1926. She is the daughter of Nathaniel S. and Sarah Reichenthal. She married Louis Gottschalk in 1920 and divorced in 1925. She married Schuyler Brinckerhoff Jackson in 1941. She attended Cornell University from 1918-1921, as well as the University of Illinois and the University of Louisville.

Jackson was a founder, along with Robert Graves, and managing partner of Seizin Press, 1927-1938, founder with Graves, and editor of a series of general criticism publications called Epilogue, from 1935-1935, and she was involved in citrus farming in Florida beginning in 1943.

From the description of Papers, 1929-1979. (Florida State University). WorldCat record id: 50679221

Laura (Riding) Jackson was a poet, critic, and author best known for her association with the Fugitives in the Thirties, for her literary partnership with Robert Graves, and as the editor of Epilogue.

Schuyler B. Jackson was Laura (Riding) Jackson's second husband. They collaborated on a number of projects on language.

From the description of Laura (Riding) Jackson and Schuyler B. Jackson collection, 1924-1991. (Cornell University Library). WorldCat record id: 63937013

Poet.

Born in New York in 1901. Best known for her nine books of poetry published as Collected Works, 1938. Mrs. Jackson was a collaborator of Robert Graves.

From the description of Papers, 1970-1976. (University of Florida). WorldCat record id: 31211126

Laura (Riding) Jackson (1901-1991) spent her life in pursuit of truth through poetry and her language work. At the beginning of her career, she associated with the Fugitives, a group of Southern poets and critics, who supported and encouraged her poetry; later she became a close collaborator and intimate of the British poet Robert Graves. But her desire to express absolute truth led her to renounce poetry and turn instead to the study of language. Because of her compulsive individualism, Laura became a controversial figure, considered a madwoman by her detractors or a prophet by her supporters.

She was born Laura Reichenthal on January 16, 1901, in New York City. An Austrian immigrant, her father Nathan Reichenthal was a failed businessman and active Socialist. Laura was the daughter of his second wife, Sadie Edersheim, a German-Jewish sweatshop worker. Laura rejected her father's socialism and, though aware of her Jewish heritage, did not practice Judaism. After graduating from Girls' High School in Brooklyn, she received a scholarship and attended Cornell University. Although she never completed her degree at Cornell, she did meet Louis Gottschalk, then a graduate history student at the university, whom she married in 1920.

During their marriage, Louis Gottschalk taught at the University of Louisville, enabling Laura to meet Allen Tate and other members of the Fugitives. The group encouraged her poetry, and, beginning in 1923, she began to publish under the name Laura Riding Gottschalk. Her first book of poetry, The Close Chaplet, appeared in 1926. Fugitive member John Crowe Ransom sent her poems to his friend Robert Graves who then invited Laura to visit him in England. Meanwhile, she alienated the Fugitives by attempting to claim leadership of the group. During this period, her marriage was unravelling as well; it was dissolved on the basis of incompatibility in 1925.

In 1926, Laura Riding, as she now called herself, took Graves's offer and moved in with him and his wife, Nancy Nicholson. Laura and Graves collaborated on a number of projects; the first, A Survey of Modernist Poetry, published in 1927, concerned their views of contemporary poetry and set forth a method of textual analysis. Other joint projects were A Pamphlet Against Anthologies (1928) and No Decency Left (under the pseudonym Barbara Rich). They also co-founded the Seizin Press (1927-1938) and co-edited the Epilogue, a literary magazine.

However their relationship, which had become more a friendship, was plagued with controversy. In 1929, Laura jumped out of a fourth-story window during a heated argument with Graves and two others; she broke her back and suffered complications from her injury the rest of her life. Laura and Graves then left England for Deia in Majorca because of a scandal involving the poet Geoffrey Phibbs. Phibbs, with whom Laura was having an affair, left her for Graves's wife, and Laura attempted suicide. Graves and Laura moved Seizin Press to Majorca as well and collected around them a small group of poets and artists, including film-maker Len Lyle, and writers James Reeves, Norman Cameron, T. S. Matthews, and Jacob Bronowski.

Until forced to leave Deia by the Spanish Civil War, Laura and Graves were involved in an intense and compelling relationship. During this period she published poetry, essays, and fiction. Full length works include fiction-- Progress of Stories (1935), A Trojan Ending (1937), and Lives of Wives (1939)--and collections of poetry-- Poems : a joking word (1930), Twenty Poems Less (1930), and Collected Poems (1938).

In Under the Influence , T. S. Matthews describes Laura:

I had never met anyone who worked as hard as Laura did. She wrote for most of the day and often late into the night--stories, poems, criticism, letters. She always had two or three books going on at a time. Besides her own work, and collaboratives with Robert (Graves), she had a hand in many other pies, helping, advising, "straightening out the muddle" in someone else's poem, picture, sculpture, novel.

After leaving Majorca, Laura and Graves settled briefly in London and Brittany and then parted company after they came to America in 1939. The breakup of the relationship left Laura bitter and hostile to Graves.

In 1941, Laura married Schuyler B. Jackson, a one-time poet and former poetry editor of Time magazine, who had been married with children when he met Laura. She severed all ties to Graves and their previous circle and styled herself Laura (Riding) Jackson. Shortly after this second marriage, she renounced poetry because it appealed to the senses and, therefore, could not express absolute truth. With Jackson, Laura began a project on word meanings (to be called Rational Meaning: a new foundation for the definition of words), on which she would work for the next thirty years. The Jacksons settled in Wabasso, Florida, and for some time tried to support themselves by shipping citrus fruit. For the remainder of her life, Laura wrote essays and articles, and, after Schuyler Jackson died in 1968, she continued their "language work." Her book-length works published after Schuyler's death included two collections of her poetry, Selected Poems: in five sets (1970) and The Poems of Laura Riding (1980), and The Telling (1972), which she characterized as her "personal evangel." Laura died from heart failure on September 2, 1991, in Wabasso.

From the guide to the Laura Riding Jackson papers, 1938-1966, null, (Literature and Rare Books)