The first edition of Laura Riding’s

appeared in 1938. It included most of the poems of her six previous collections (the first published in 1926), three long poems that had been published separately, and some new work. Riding placed the poems in predominantly chronological order, dividing them into five parts, and in her preface presented the volume as “the integrated whole of my poetic work up to the middle-point of my life”. She was thirty-seven, and stopped writing poetry shortly thereafter.

Reviewers’ responses to Riding’s earlier volumes of poetry ranged from high praise to bafflement. Although her work was lauded by a number of prominent contemporaries, including Allen Tate and the other Fugitives, Robert Graves, and W.B. Yeats, she never quite joined the

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Citation: Ophir, Ella. "Collected Poems". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 April 2008 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5846, accessed 25 November 2024.]