Laura Riding

Laura Riding Jackson (1901-1981) was an American poet and novelist, particularly known for her association with Robert Graves. She was born Laura Reichenthal in New York to a family of Austrian immigrants, and educated at Cornell University. Her first marriage, to Louis Gottschalt, ended in divorce in 1925, at which point she went to live in Europe where she would remain for many years. Her first collection of poetry, The Close Chaplet, was published in 1926, and it was at this point that she assumed the surname Riding. Shortly afterwards she met Graves, and lived with him in his Mediterranean exile, collaborating with him on A Survey of Modernist Poetry (1927). Eventually, they parted and she married Schulyer B. Jackson in 1941. Her historical novel, The Trojan Ending, was published in 1937, but was not well regarded.