Vladimir Nabokov's earliest major work, written when he was twenty-four, is a full-length play in verse of Shakespearean beauty and richness.
The story of an incognito king whose love for the wife of a banished revolutionary brings on the chaos the king has fought to prevent, this five-act play [...]

From one of the 20th century's great writers comes one of the finest autobiographies of our time. "Speak, Memory" was first published by Vladimir Nabokov in 1951 as "Conclusive Evidence" and then assiduously revised and republished in 1966. The Everyman's Library edition includes, for the first time[...]

""Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine bogey tale."" Robert Louis Stevenson's masterpiece of the duality of good and evil in man's nature sprang from the darkest recesses of his own unconscious--during a nightmare from which his wife awakened him, alerted by his screams. More than a hundred ye[...]

Vladimir Nabokov held the unique distinction of being one of the most important writers of the twentieth century in two separate languages, Russian and English. Known for his verbal mastery and bold plots, Nabokov fashioned a literary legacy that continues to grow in significance. This 2005 volume o[...]

Ellen Pifer challenges the widely held assumption that Nabokov is a writer more interested in literary games than in living human beings. She demonstrates how Nabokov arranges the details of his fiction to explore human psychology and moral truth, and she argues her case with style. Focusing on the[...]

The urbane authority that Vladimir Nabokov brought to every word he ever wrote, and the ironic amusement he cultivated in response to being uprooted and politically exiled twice in his life, never found fuller expression than in "Pale Fire" published in 1962 after the critical and popular success of[...]

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, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, an[...]

In Pale Fire Nabokov offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures: a 999-line poem by the reclusive genius John Shade; an adoring foreword and commentary by Shade's self-styled Boswell, Dr. Charles Kinbote; a darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue. [...]

Albinus, a respectable, middle-aged man and aspiring filmmaker, abandons his wife for a lover half his age: Margot, who wants to become a movie star herself. When Albinus introduces her to Rex, an American movie producer, disaster ensues. What emerges is an elegantly sardonic and irresistibly ironic[...]

Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude." an imaginary crime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his last days [...]

In this collection of interviews, articles, and editorials, Nabokov ranges over his life, art, education, politics, literature, movies, and modern times, among other subjects. Strong Opinions offers his trenchant, witty, and always engaging views on everything from the Russian Revolution to the cor[...]