Speak, Memory, first published in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised in 1966, is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov's life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including Lolita, Pnin, Despair,...
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he'll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane, a silver-tongued poet or a pervert, a tortured soul or a monster or...
Pnin is a professor of Russian at an American college who takes the wrong train to deliver a lecture in a language he cannot master. Pnin is a tireless lover who writes to his treacherous Liza: "A genius needs to keep so much in store, and thus cannot...
A satirical fantasy on the rise of a tyrant state. Adam Krug stands alone in opposition to the new regime. His antagonist is the leader of the new party, Paduk. Grieving over his wife's recent death, Krug is at first dismissive of Paduk's activities....
Written in inimitable prose, these 65 stories span Nabokov's extraordinary life and career. Arranged chronologically to illuminate his development as a writer, the collection displays Nabokov's range of technical and formal inventiveness.
King is the wealthy and boisterous proprietor of a male clothing emporium. Ruddy with health and self-satisfaction, he is repugnant to his cold queen, his wife Martha. She is warmed by his fortune, but hungers for their nephew, the knave of hearts.
In this tale, Hermann, a German chocolate manufacturer, stumbles across a man he believes to be his double and starts plotting to turn this accidental encounter to his advantage. A murder story? A study of alienation or the problems of identity?