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
Not so dramatically moving along with the next set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: Собрание сочинений: III [Sobranie sochineniĭ: III / Collected works: III] was the third volume in a projected set of Nabokov’s complete Russian works that Ardis began issuing in 1988 or 1989. This volume is an A-item because it included Волшебник [Volshebnik / The enchanter], its first book appearance in its original Russian form. It also included a translation into Russian of Nabokov’s English foreword to The Eye, the novel Соглядатай [Sogliadataĭ / The eye], and a dozen stories. The Enchanter had been previously published in Dmitri Nabokov’s English translation in 1986. The volume did not appear in the 1986 bibliography.
Tags: novel, Russian, Russian editions
Dramatically moving along with the next set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: Пьесы [P’esy / Plays], a collection of ten works in Russian that included a verse drama, five plays, excerpts from three plays, and a foreword to a play, in translation. It was issued within the Soviet Union in 1990 shortly before its collapse. Four of the works appeared here in book form in full for the first time. The volume did not appear in the 1986 bibliography.
Reading on with a new set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: Lectures on Literature, a compilation of ten lectures focusing on one masterwork each from seven European writers. The lectures were edited for publication by Fredson Bowers and copublished in 1980 by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich and Bruccoli Clark. The book has gone through four other editions. It is A51 in the 1986 bibliography.
Carrying on to the next set of draft pages for the revised and updated bibliography: Bend Sinister, Nabokov’s second novel in English and the first he wrote in America. Henry Holt published it in 1947. It has gone through ten further editions, most notably the Time Reading Program in 1964 that first included Nabokov’s introduction. It is A24 in the 1986 bibliography.
Tags: novel
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