Selected Letters, 1940–1977
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
"Wonderful, compulsively readable, delicious" personal correspondences, spanning decades in the life and literary career of the author of Lolita (The Washington Post Book World).
An icon of twentieth-century literature, Vladimir Nabokov was a novelist, poet, and playwright, whose personal life was a fascinating story in itself. This collection of more than four hundred letters chronicles the author's career, recording his struggles in the publishing world, the battles over Lolita, and his relationship with his wife, among other subjects, and gives a surprising look at the personality behind the creator of such classics as Pale Fire and Pnin.
"Dip in anywhere, and delight follows." —John Updike
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nabokoviana for fans of VN's every facet turns up throughout this comprehensive collection of letters gathered by the author's son and Bruccoli ( Some Sort of Grandeur). Extending from the author's 1940 arrival in America to his death in Switzerland in 1977, the letters are written mainly to publishers, literary friends and editors. They reveal Nabokov's sure sense of himself as a major literary figure (a reminder to publisher M. Girodias: ``I wrote LOLITA.''), provide glimpses of his politics (``I never have attended, nor ever will attend, any function to which Soviet agents are invited.''), his teaching career at Wellesley and Cornell, and his lepidopteran pursuits. Of particular interest is the anguished attention required to find publishers for Lolita ; he called the complex legalities surrounding that book ``lolitigating.'' Letters to New Yorker editor Katherine White evince a warm mutual regard; Nabokov's exasperated affection for Edmund Wilson is another theme. Revealing his spleenic side, his good humor and above all his wit (he said titling a translation of Gogol ' s Dead Souls as Home Life was ``like calling a version of ` Fleurs du Mal'--`The Daisychain.' ''), this collection presents an intimate, invaluable view of the writer writing. Illustrations not seen by PW .
