The Bohemian Bard Of Wabasso

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Laura (Riding) and Schuyler Jackson lived in this Cracker-style cottage in Wabasso.

Laura (Riding) Jackson came to the little town on the banks of the Indian River with her husband, Schuyler Jackson, also a writer. Nobody in Wabasso knew who they were, which was just fine with them. They had writing to do and they had oranges and grapefruit to grow for income until their poems and books could bring in royalties.

For nearly a decade, the American-born Laura had lived in London, Paris, Vienna and the Spanish island of Majorca. In following her Bohemian leanings, she crossed the paths of many celebrities, most notably poet, biographer and novelist Robert Graves, with whom she lived for a number of years.

Lawrence of Arabia found her “as glamorous as a movie star,” and the legendary Gertrude Stein became a close friend. Many other famous writers moved in and out of her life: Robert Penn Warren, Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom, Donald Davidson, Siegfried Sassoon, Hart Crane, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf and W.H. Auden.

Read the entire article in the November 2005 issue

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