She earned the nickname Laura Riding Roughshod as much for her crash-and-burn personality as well as her brave and beautiful poetry.

One of Laura Riding's most notorious personal dramas occurred in the summer of 1939, when she arrived in the life of Time critic Schuyler Jackson, leading to the breakup of his marriage and her own longtime relationship with poet/novelist Robert Graves. Many believe Riding (who later married Jackson) drove Jackson's wife, Kit -- who during that summer snapped and tried to strangle her young daughter -- to a mental institution.

Versions of this story appear in three Graves biographies, one biography of Riding and a memoir, Jacks or Better, written by T.S. Matthews, a member of the "inner circle," who later became editor of Time. But no one has gotten it quite right, says New Directions publisher Griselda Ohannessian, who, as the daughter in question, has claim to comment.

"Part of the trouble is you're dealing with something that's hard to believe," she told PW. "You're thinking you are reading fiction, when it is fact."

Ohannessian herself has recently written a nonfiction account of the events, but still hasn't decided whether to publish it. But meanwhile, a novel, The Summer of '39 (Norton, Sept.), written by Graves's authorized biographer Miranda Seymour -- who acknowledges in her author's note the real people and incident that served as inspiration for the book-is starting to attract the kind of controversy and media attention that could lead to book sales.

"If Seymour wanted to write a novel and let it stand alone as a novel, then that's what she should have done," said Elizabeth Friedmann, a former personal assistant to Riding and now an executor of her estate. "But to tie it to these people, I think, is just a ploy for selling books."

Seymour told PW her fictionalization had more to do with examining a story she could not possibly explore under the constraints of biography. The incident in 1939 also reminded her of The Turn of the Screw. "Nothing was being done spookily at night, there were no ghosts, but it was a totally horrifying experience, happening in front of everybody," she explained.

The British edition of Seymour's book, released by John Murray in England last year as The Telling (the title borrowed from Riding's book about truth), apparently took the Riding estate by surprise last year. Seymour told PW that the estate hounded Murray about making some changes in her author's note after it was published, but it was too late.

What acquiring editor Bob Weil characterized as "minor, picky" corrections -- like making it clear that it was Kit and not Schuyler Jackson who filed for divorce -- will appear in the U.S. edition. And at Ohannessian's request Seymour made it clear that the reference to incest in the novel is completely fiction.

But the Riding estate itself is no objective player in this new drama. Not only d s the estate zealously guard access to Riding's various papers, but Friedmann herself is writing a bio of Riding (who died in 1991) for Random House. "Although by the time my book comes out, all the things they've heard about Laura Riding might be ingrained in people's minds and they'll think my book is fiction," she said.

But ironically, many of the people Riding's supporters view as her enemies greatly admire her as an artist. That art is set for some new showcases -- Persea Books, Riding's longtime publisher, will issue The Laura (Riding) Jackson Reader to coincide with the release of Friedmann's biography, and several of Riding's poems will be featured in the Library of America's American Poetry: The 20th Century, slated for spring of 2000.

"I think it quite extraordinary, terrifically courageous poetry," said Seymour. "As for the rest of it, well, it's difficult trying to be polite."