In Extremis

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Acknowledging the difficulty of accurately portraying a writer who continuously reinvented herself, Baker ( Making a Farm ) draws heavily on unpublished works to achieve some success in illuminating the life of Laura Riding (1901-1991). Riding's verse-- Collected Poems was published in 1938--was acclaimed for the precision of its language. From 1927-1936 she lived on the island of Majorca with British writer Robert Graves, with whom she established an avant-garde literary salon and founded the Seizin Press. In 1941 Riding left Graves, returned to America and, amidst scandal, married critic Schuyler B. Jackson. Renouncing poetry, she worked with Jackson on the never-published The Dictionary of Meanings and wrote several philosophical treatises, e.g., The Telling (1972). Temperamental and controversial, Riding carried on active correspondences with critics and academics until her death. Illustrations not seen by PW. (July)

Library Journal

Baker presents a well-researched biography of Riding (1901-91), a writer whose work has been obfuscated by a difficult personality and estrangement from her colleagues. As is often the case in literary biography, Riding's life is examined through her writing and, accordingly, her inner being becomes as important as her actions. The core of the book is Riding's 14-year relationship with Robert Graves--treated most thoroughly. In addition, descriptions of Riding's suicide attempt, her collaborative efforts, and her personal associations with such literary luminaries as Gertrude Stein are telling of Riding's complex psyche. Baker has made extensive use of archival souces in tracing this unconventional woman's journey away from poetry and toward an absolute truth that could be exposed by means of other forms such as criticism. Recommended for humanities and woman's studies collections. (For a recent review of the work of Laura Riding Jackson, see The Word ``Woman'' and Other Related Writings , LJ 4/15/93.--Ed.)-- Janice Braun, Hoover Institution Lib., Stanford, Cal.

Pat Monaghan

This can't-put-it-down page-turner of a biography is worthy of its subject, the controversial modernist poet Laura Riding--or Laura (Riding) Jackson, as she preferred to be called before her death just two years ago. Discovered and hailed by the coterie of poets around Allan Tate and John Crowe Ransom in the 1920s, she went to England to advance her reputation. And that she did: with poet Robert Graves and his artist wife Nancy Nicholson she formed a sensational menage, which later narrowed to just herself and Graves. For more than a decade on the island of Mallorca, the two lived and wrote. Riding's poetry was intensely private, sometimes obscure, but had a compelling intensity and classic diction. Driven by unanswerable philosophic questions, she eventually withdrew from the literary world and, for years, published little but scathing correctives to those writers who dared discuss her or Graves' life or work. Several other biographers ran afoul of her demanding temperament; so did Baker, but Riding's death left this biographer a free hand. Baker's work is exemplary: she reveals the character of her subject without either whitewashing or (as in a recent biography of Graves) excoriating Riding for her faults; she invents a twining, switchback narrative eminently suitable to the complexity of her subject's life and work; and she discusses Riding's work in clear, expansive analyses that should heighten literary interest in the poet.