In Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding - Hardcover

Baker, Deborah

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0802113648 ISBN 13: 9780802113641

Publisher: Grove Pr, 1993

Synopsis

Traces the life of the controversial poet, critic, and essayist, discusses her relationship with Robert Graves, and looks at her influence on a wide variety of fellow writers

About this title

From the Back Cover

In her poetry, fiction, essays, and public statements, Laura Riding, the author of twenty-three books, tackled feminism, communism, sexuality, Freud, language and belief, and the coming-of-age of the American dream. In her personal relationships she was often at the center of a circle of friends and artists whose activities she inspired and sometimes controlled. Her extraordinary range of associates included writers as diverse as Hart Crane, Gertrude Stein, Edmund Wilson, Malcolm Cowley, Allen Tate, and Robert Penn Warren. During a long and "scandalous" affair with Robert Graves, she watched over his most productive period and guided much of his best work. Together they launched the New Criticism. Laura Riding, who died in 1991 at the age of ninety, was a deeply divided woman whose ability to create a personal mythology and continually reimagine herself could be both astonishing and maddening. The frequent subject of outrageous rumor and intense controversy, she has been portrayed as a megalomaniac, a sexual libertine, a femme fatale, even a witch. In this biography, Deborah Baker considers Laura Riding in the context of her background, her times, and, most importantly, her work. She removes the layers of conjecture, bias, and sometimes sheer nonsense that have distorted Riding's life, reputation, and scale of achievement.

Edition details

• Publisher: Grove Pr
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802113648
• ISBN 13: 9780802113641
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 478