Vladimir Nabokov: A Descriptive Bibliography, Garland, 1986

I am Michael Juliar, the author of the standard bibliography on Vladimir Nabokov. That work, Vladimir Nabokov: A Descriptive Bibliography (New York: Garland, 1986), with its many holes and many errors, is out of print and out-of-date. So are the two self-published updates I issued in 1988 and 1991. I am working on a new, completely reconceived and re-executed edition with technology that wasn’t readily available, if at all, two decades ago. For more on that, see the page “FAQ: The New and the Old”.

This blog is a crossroads where the trivia (in both its original and modern senses) of bibliography, collecting, and commerce will meet. I will post information about my latest bibliographic discoveries, corrections, and additions to the first version of my bibliography. I will answer your questions about Nabokov bibliography. I will ask questions of you when I need help, such as information on a volume that I have not been able to examine. I will point to stores, dealers, and auctions that have Nabokov books you may be looking for. I will have comments about collecting Nabokov in Russian, English, and French and the 41 other languages in which his works have appeared.

I must emphasize that this blog is about Nabokov in print. It focuses on his works as they have been issued, reissued, translated, Brailled, and pirated in books, journals, newspapers, and magazines. The concept of “in print” is expanded to include information on adaptations to the stage and screen, as spoken recordings, and into song. I’ll try to cover electronic versions. But please realize that this blog is not about content. It is not about Nabokov’s allusions or sources or style. There are other, good places for that, especially NABOKV-L, the Nabokov list server.

I look forward to reading your comments on my postings, especially those that are about what you need in a modern bibliography. Do you need the data sliced and rearranged so that you can readily see every Nabokov translation ever issued by a particular French publisher? Do you need to see how one typesetting of text is carried from one edition to another, even across publishers, such as has happened with American issues of Lolita? Do you need to know all of the spelling, punctuation, and wording variations in titles and first lines of Nabokov’s poems, both in Russian and English? Do you need a description of each of the 38 printings of the Berkley paperback edition of Lolita that were issued beginning in late 1966? I think that the new bibliography will, when finished, be able to furnish answers to such queries.

BTW, I am not an academic. I am, in chronological order, a reader (in English only), a collector, and a bibliographer of VN’s books. If you want to contact me offline, write to blog@vnbiblio.com.