‘Names-History’

To the Editors:

Some time ago there was recorded in your pages, in a letter from me, an account of variations in my name, corrective of a wrong account of them supplied in a review of a book of mine. Item a of element 6 of your “Christians Quiz,” presented in your issue of December 20, disregards the actualities of my names-history, provoking confusion as to it—as if there were no provision of accurate detail in your files.

I did not originally write as “Laura Gottschalk,” as your Quiz question has it. My original writer-name was “Laura Riding Gottschalk.” After a divorce, I made “Laura Riding” my personal and my authorial name, although “Riding” had been only adopted as a middle name to go with my married name, my maiden name being of three Germanic syllables, so that the family-names whole would have been too heavyweight. When I married again, in the early Forties, my surname became “Jackson.” I made my authorial name, then, “Laura (Riding) Jackson,” retaining “Riding” there, parenthetically, for continuity of authorial identity, but not as part of my personal name.

I wish that it had not been made necessary for me to present you with a repetition of the history of this succession of names.

Laura Jackson

[Laura (Riding) Jackson]

Wabasso, Florida