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This article is taken from PN Review 136, Volume 27 Number 2, November - December 2000.

A Centenary Portfolio: 1 Laura (Riding) Jackson

This selection from the unpublished writings of Laura (Riding) Jackson celebrates the centenary of her birth, which falls on 16 January 2001. The pieces are published here by permission of the Laura (Riding) Jackson Board of Literary Management, with the additional permission of the collections in which the original typescripts are held.

The manuscript of 'Petty Pomposity, Pompous Pettiness', dating from ca. 1982, is held in the Berg Collection of English and American Literature, New York Public Library (Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations). 'To a poet, in response to the presentation to me ' was extracted by Laura (Riding) Jackson from a letter she wrote in 1969; the typescript is held in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Cornell University Library. 'To Someone Who Has Sent Me A Poem Of Hers Recently Published' was extracted by the author from a letter of 1976; the typescript is in the collection of Elizabeth Friedmann. The pieces were probably intended by Laura (Riding) Jackson for inclusion in one or other of the half-dozen books she was writing during the last three decades of her life - most likely
A Book of Later-Life Commentaries (her literary memoirs, yet to be published), or The Failure of Poetry (soon to be published by the University of Michigan Press, but not including the pieces appearing here).

JOHN NOLAN and J. ALAN CLARK.


Petty Pomposity, Pompous Pettiness

One has much to choose from, for demonstrating ...


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