Laura Riding’s first poetry collection, The Close Chaplet, appeared in 1926; she was 25.
In 1939, after some 30 authored or co-authored works of poetry, fiction, and critical essays, Riding gave up; she was 37. This abrupt ending to a remarkable literary career was marked by her Collected Poems (1938), an important work in her canon.
Reluctant to partake in poetics, in 1972 she eventually saw through the press her final book, The Telling. This post-poetic testament she called a ‘personal evangel’. The very discrete tick at the top of her poem ‘The Way It Is’ is by Charles Brasch.