Correspondence, 1962-1966

Robert Nye (b. 1939) is a British literary critic, poet, playwright, and novelist. He began his career as an acclaimed poet but eventually turned to literary criticism and fiction. His first novel, Doubtfire, was published in 1967. His best known works are his later novels, Falstaff (1976), Merlin (1978), and Faust (1980). Laura and he began a relationship through correspondence in the early 1960s that continued until her death. He serves as a trustee of her literary estate.

This series contains 137 letters, postcards, and notes, both handwritten and typed. Most of them were written by Laura (Riding) Jackson to Robert Nye. However, the files also include a few letters and notes written by Schuyler B. Jackson, some letters addressed jointly to Robert and Judith Nye, carbon copies of letters written to Martin Seymour-Smith and his wife Janet, and a letter from Kitsa Grigozrathou of Salonica, a friend of Laura. The date of the earliest letter is May 27, 1962, and that of the last letter September 26, 1966.

The correspondence discusses poetry and the writing of poetry, word usage, poetic and other inspiration, and Laura's writing projects, including the linguistic work with Schuyler, criticism on the work of others, and The Telling. It also addresses Nye's work and personal life, Laura's editor Sonia Raiziss, Robert Graves, and Martin Seymour-Smith. Other important subjects include her philosophy, theories, and personal life.

Laura comments at length on James Baldwin, William Blake, James Buchanan, Norman Cameron, Hart Crane, Charles M. Doughty, Robert Frost, Barry Goldwater, V. I. Gurdjieff, James Joyce, Leonide Ouspensky, Ezra Pound, Arthur Rimbaud, William Carlos Williams, and William Butler Yeats. There are brief comments on Joseph Auslander, Kay Boyle, Johannes Brahms, e. e. cummings, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, T. S. Eliot, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Max Ernst, Kenneth Fearing, Sally Graves, Thomas Hardy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Herbert, D. H. Lawrence, Herman Melville, Edwin Muir, Wilfred Owen, David Reeves, "Sitwellian folk," Genevieve Taggard, Nathaniel Tarn, Dylan Thomas, and Mark Twain. The correspondence is arranged chronologically.