A mannered grace

"Laura (Riding) Jackson, poet and thinker, is one of the most important figures in twentieth-century American and British literature. She is also one of the most perplexing. With the publication of this long-awaited, authorized biography written by the woman she took into her confidence, Laura (Riding) Jackson can be seen for the first time in a clarifying light." "Thought of primarily as a brilliant poet, (Riding) Jackson was awarded the prestigious Bollingen Prize in 1991, yet, paradoxically, she had renounced the writing of poetry more than forty years earlier. Literary figures such as…