In Extremis: The Life of Laura Riding

by N/A

• Used

  Hardcover
  1993

  $8.68

  In her poetry, fiction, essays and public statements, Laura Riding tackled an extraordinary range of controversial and topical issues. In her personal relationships she was often at the centre of a circle of friends and artists, as diverse as Gertrude Stein, Edmund Wilson, Hart Crane and Robert Penn Warren, whose activities she inspired and sometimes controlled. During a long affair with Robert Graves, she was the muse of his best work. Together they launched the New Criticism. Laura Riding, who died in 1991 at the age of 90, was a deeply divided woman whose ability to create a personal mythology and continually re-imagine herself could be astonishing. The frequent subject of outrageous rumour and intense controversy, she has been portrayed as a megalomaniac, a sexual libertine, a femme fatale, even a witch. In this biography, the author considers Laura Riding in the context of her background, her times and her work and removes the layers of conjecture and bias that have distorted her life, reputation and scale of achievement.