Originally published in 1930, Experts Are Puzzled is a peculiar and difficult-to-classify collection of fables, philosophical prose and experimental fiction by Laura Riding, the American modernist poet who would eventually renounce poetry altogether. 

The stories operate through weird and eerie repetitions, reversals and revelations. In ‘The Fable of the Dice’, a town facing certain destruction chooses to debate its fate rather than enjoy its remaining time. Elsewhere, apparently simple accounts of goodness, social convention and human behaviour unravel into philosophical problems.

Riding is circular and argumentative, often resembling thought experiments disguised as fairy tales. Beneath the humour is a sustained suspicion of received wisdom, intellectual authority and the comforting certainty of explanation.

Ugly Duckling Presse, 2018. First edition, first printing of this reissue, from the Lost Literature series (No. 19). Paperback, with an introduction by Mark Jacobs and George Fragopoulos. Very good condition, with light surface wear to the covers and clean interior pages.