I am vacationing on Mt. Desert Island for the next two weeks and won’t be able to post the next draft pages until I return. That next set will be very complex (dozens of editions), very long (hundreds of printings), and very rich (from many countries in the two languages Nabokov wrote and translated it in). For these reasons, I will post A28 Lolita (for it is her of course) in installments over several weeks when I return.
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Sprinting on to the next set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: Russische Lieder [Russian Songs], the notes on and translations of a dozen Russian songs sung by Nabokov’s son, Dmitri, on a recording issued by MPS Records in 1974. This item did not appear in the 1986 bibliography.
Tags: notes, recording, songs, translations
Rounding the turn and moving on to the next set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: Selected Poems, a collection of 89 poems Nabokov wrote, beginning in 1914, in Russian (some translated by Nabokov, some by his son Dmitri) and in English. Edited and introduced by Thomas Karshan, it was published by Knopf in the U.S. and Penguin in Britain in 2012. It did not appear in the 1986 bibliography.
And so, the next set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: The Original of Laura, Nabokov’s final piece of writing, his uncompleted novel. Before he died in 1977 he told his wife that if he couldn’t finish it he wanted her to destroy it. She wasn’t able to before she died in 1991. Nor was his son, Dmitri who finally, in 2008 after much thought, announced that he would publish it. It was issued simultaneously in the U.S. by Knopf and in Britain by Penguin in November 2009 to much fanfare. But the novel’s semi-formed state left many critics bewildered. They gave the book generally poor reviews. It did not appear in the 1986 bibliography.
Tags: novel
Skipping along to the next set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: Poesie, a set of Italian translations of 30 of Nabokov’s poems was published in March 1962 by Il Saggiatore, an imprint of Mondadori. The Russian and English originals appear on facing pages of the Italian translations. One Russian poem, “Какое сделал я дурное дело. [Kakoe sdelal ia durnoe delo. / What is the evil deed I have committed.]”, appeared here for the first time in book form, therefore making this book an A-item. The 1962 Italian edition is the only appearance of this collection. Alberto Pescetto translated the Russian poems, Enzo Siciliano the English. It did not appear in the 1986 bibliography.
Fluttering along to the next set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: Pale Fire, Nabokov’s novel in the apparatus of a poem and its commentary. For many years he had been playing with the elements that became the novel. But it didn’t spring into life until the fall of 1960 and within a year he had finished it. Pale Fire was published by Putnam’s on 7-Apr-1962. It has since gone through 14 further editions including two aimed at collectors. It is A35 in the 1986 bibliography.
Tags: novel
Attacking the next set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: Pnin, Nabokov’s fourth novel in English which he began in the late spring of 1953. As he wrote what became seven chapters over the next two years, he submitted them to The New Yorker. The magazine accepted four of them. Because the completed book was less than two-hundred pages long, Nabokov had some trouble finding a publisher for it. Finally Doubleday accepted it and it came out on 7-Mar-1957 to positive reviews and a quick second printing. Since then, it has been through ten further editions in America and Britain. It is A30 in the 1986 bibliography.
Tags: novel
Charging on to the next set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. Begun in Paris in December 1938 before he and his family steamed to America, this was Nabokov’s initial foray into long-form creativity in English. While he was still in Europe, he couldn’t find a publisher for the new novel in England or the U.S. Only when he reached New York was he able, with the help of friends, to place it with the new firm, New Directions. It is A21 in the 1986 bibliography.
The first printing of 1941 was issued in 1941 and 1945 in a variety of bindings and coverings. The details of the two issues and the four variants of the second issue are described.
Tags: novel
Bearing back, ceaselessly, with a new set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: Lectures on Russian Literature, a compilation of lectures on Russian literature, focusing on six writers. The lectures were edited for publication by Fredson Bowers and copublished in 1981 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Bruccoli Clark. The book has gone through four other editions. It is A53 in the 1986 bibliography.
Persisting, we move on to a new set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: Nabokov’s Butterflies is a collection of 415 butterfly artifacts drawn from the three worlds of Nabokov’s life—the scientific, the artistic, and the personal—and displays them where they met and where they interbred. Included, mostly as excerpts, are memoirs, stories, novels, poems, lepidopterological articles, letters, essays, and drawings. This is also the one place in which all of Nabokov’s scientific works on lepidoptera (most in full) are readily available. The volume did not appear in the 1986 bibliography.
Tags: butterflies, compilations, lepidoptera
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