Nabokov's right-known operate around English is undoubtedly Lolita (1955), frequently cited when one of a first novels of the 20th century, probably followed by the singularly integrated Pale Fire (1962). Each one works exhibit Nabokov's love of wordplay and descriptive detail.

He as well mass produced important contributions to lepidoptery and created a total of chess problems.

Biography

A firstborn boy of Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov & his wife Elenthe, née Elena Ivanovna Rukavishnikova, he was innate to a large and sternotherus personal in St. Petersburg, where he also spent his childhood and youth. A personal spoke Russian, English and French in their household, & Nabokov was trilingual from either an early age.

A Nabokov personal left Russia in the wake up of the 1917 February Revolution for a friend's estate in the Crimea, in which it remained for Eighteen months. Below a kill of the White Army within Crimea, they left Russia for exile in american Europe. Fallowing emigrating from either Russia inside 1919, the personal settled briefly withwithin England, in which Vladimir enrolled in Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied Slavic and romance languages. Within 1923, he graduated from Cambridge & relocated to Berlin, where he gained occasionally reputation in a colony of Russian émigrés as a novelist and poet, writing under a anonym Vladimir Sirin. He married Véra Slonim inside Berlin in 1925. Their boy, Dmitri, was natural around 1934.

Around 1922, Nabokov's father wwhen assassinated around Berlin by Russian royalist as he tried to shelter their very target, Pavel Milyukov, a leader of the Constitutional Democratic Person-inside-exile. This episode, of mistaken, violent dying, would echo again & again in the creator's fiction, in which characters would meet their violent deaths under mistaken terms. Within Pale Fire, for example, John Shade is mistaken for the king of Zembla & is assassinated.

Nabokov was the synaesthete and described aspects of synaesthesia within many of his works. Inside his memoir Heavy Opinions, he notes that his married woman likewise exhibited synesthesia; rather her hubby, her mind's eye associated colors by having particular letters. It found that Dmitri shared a trait, & what is more that a colors he associated by owning a bit of letters were within occasionally subjects blends of his parents' chromaticity—"which is as if genes were painting in aquarelle".

Nabokov left Germany by using his personal around 1937 for Paris and in 1940 fled from a forward German troops to the United States. It was on text that he met Edmund Wilson, who introduced Nabokov's function to Western editors, in time leading to his international recognition.

Nabokov come to Wellesley College in 1941 as resident lecturer in comparative literature, the position created specifically for him, providing an income, absolutely free! instance to write creatively & pursue his lepidopterology. He is when well remembered as a founder of Wellesley's Russian Department. His lecture series in major nineteenth-century Russian writers wwhen hailed as "funny," "learned," & "brilliantly satirical." around a period of this instance, the Nabokovs resided in Wellesley. Below the lecture tour through the United States, Nabokov returned to Wellesley for the 1944-45 academic season as a lecturer around Russian. He served through the 1947–48 term when Wellesley's a single-one-person Russian Department, offering courses around Russian language & literature. His classes were wildly popular, due when much to his unique teaching style as to the wartime interest altogether items Russian. Nabokov left Wellesley around 1948 to turn into chairwoman of Cornell's comparative literature department. Inside 1945, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.

Fallowing a profits of Lolita, Nabokov was able to move to Europe. From either 1960 to the prevent of his life he sleep within the Montreux Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland, where he died around 1977.

Note on Nabokov's date of birth
His date of birth was April 10, 1899 according to the Julian calendar inside use in Russia at that period. A Gregorian equivalent is April 22, which is achieved by adding 12 years to the Julian date. the bit of sources keep close at hand incorrectly estimated a date of 23 April, by not suitably using the Baker's dozen-day difference in the calendars that applied single fallowing 28 Feb 1900. Nevertheless this is irrelevant when Nabokov was innate prior to so. Inside ‘Speak, Memory’ Nabokov explains a reason of the error & confirms the correct date of 22 April.

Work
His foremost writings were in the Russian language, but he come to his greatest distinction in the English language. For this accomplishment, he has been equated by having Joseph Conrad; yet a select few learn from this when a dubious comparison, as Conrad merely composed withwithin English, never in his native Polish. (Nabokov himself disdained a comparison for esthetic reasons, declaring, "I differ from Joseph Conradically.") Nabokov translated numbers of of his have early works into English, every now and agaaround in cooperation using his boy Dmitri. His trilingual upbringing (English, Russian and French) had the profound influence in his art. He hwhen metaphorically described the transition from either either of these language to a second as a slow journeying when asleep from a single village to a second using sole a candle for illumination.

Nabokov is noted for his complex plots, clever word play, and utilize of alliteration. He gained two fame & ill fame by having his novel Lolita (1955), which tells of a grown human's consummated passion for the twelve-month-old girl. This & his more novels, particularly Pale Fire (1962), won him a place among a greatest novelists of the 20th century. Mayhap his shaping function, which met using the mixed response, is his yearn novel, Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969). He devoted further instance to the construction of this novel than any of his others. Nabokov's fiction is characterized by its linguistic playfulness. Nabokov's short story "The Vane Sisters" is famous in section for its acrostical final paragraph, in which a foremost letters of every word spell out a ghostlike message from either beyond the grave.

Nabokov's stature as a literary critic is founded largely in his 4-volume translation of and comment in Aleksandr Pushkin's Russian soul epic Eugene Onegin. That comment ended by using an appendix known as Notes in Prosody which has developed the reputation of its have. This essay stemmed from either his observation that spell Pushkin's iambic tetrameters had been the a portion of Russian literature for a fairly short ii centuries, it were clearly understood per Russian prosodists. But then, he viewed a very much older English iambic tetrameters when addled & badly documented. Around his have words: His translation wwhen the focus of a bitterly polemic among him & more translation theorizer; he experienced rendered the super precisely metered & rhymed novel within verse as (by his have admission) a stumbling, non-metrical, non-rhymed prose version. He argued that tons verse translations of Onegin fatally betrayed andy skinner's apply of language; critics replied that failure to produce the translation when attractively styled when a original was a good deal greater betrayal.

Nabokov's knocker fault him for existence an esthete & for his overattention to language & detail like than character development. Around his essay "Nabokov, or Nostalgia," Danilo Kiš wrote that Nabokov's is "a magnificent, complex, and sterile art."

Lepidoptery
His career as a lepidopterist was equally distinguished. Throughout an extensive career of collecting he never learned to cause the car, & he depended in his married woman Vera to bring him to collecting web sites. In a period of a Forties he was responsible organizing the butterfly collection of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. His writings in that region were extremely technical indicator. This, conjunctive sustaining his specialty in the comparatively unspectacular tribe Polyommatini of the family Lycaenidae, has left this facet of his life little explored by most admirers of his literary works.

A fossilist & litterateur Stephen Jay Gould discussed Nabokov's lepidoptery inside an essay reprinted inside his book ''We've Landed.'' Gould notes that Nabokov was now and again the scientific "stick-in-the-mud"; e.g., Nabokov never accepted that genetics or the numeration of chromosomes could be a valid way to distinguish coinage of insect. Numbers of of Nabokov's fans keep close at hand tried to ascribe literary value to his scientific papers, Gould notes. On the other hand, others keep close at hand claimed that his scientific function enriched his literary output. Gould advocates a third see, holding that the more 2 positions come examples of the post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy. Like than assuming that either side of Nabokov's function driven or even caused a more, Gould proposes that each stemmed from either Nabokov's love of detail, contemplation & symmetry.

List of Works
Fiction

[http://www.nabokov.tk Nabokov Library] e-text deposit, numbers of works mentioned beneath come available on this text (for non-commercial apply & non-public presentation lone)

Novels and novellas
Novels and novellas written in Russian
(1926) ''Mashen'ka (Машенька); English translation: Mary (1970) (1928) Korol' Dama Valet (Король, дама, валет); English translation: King, Queen, Knave (1968) (1930) Zashchita Luzhina (Защита Лужина); English translation: The Luzhin Defense or The Defense (1964) (besides adapted to film, The Luzhin Defence, in 2001) (1930) Sogliadatai (СоглÑ?датай (Eavesdropper)), novelette; number 1 publication as a book 1938; English translation: The Eye (1965) (1932) Podvig (Подвиг (Deed)); English translation: Glory (1971) (1932) Kamera Obskura (Камера ОбÑ?кура); English translations: Camera Obscura (1936), Laughter in the Dark (1938) (1936) Otchayanie (ОтчаÑ?ние); English translation: Despair (1937, 1966) (1938) Priglasheniye na kazn' (Приглашение на казнь (Invitation to an execution)); English translation: Invitation to a Beheading (1959) (1938) Dar (Дар); English translation: The Gift (1963) (Unpublished novelette, written within 1939) Volshebnik (Волшебник); English translation: The Enchanter (1985)

Novels written in English
(1941) The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1947) Bend Sinister (1955) Lolita, self-translated into Russian, (1965) (1957) Pnin (1962) Pale Fire (1969) Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1972) Transparent Things (1974) Look at the Harlequins! (1977) The Original of Laura (Unfinished/Unpublished)

Short story collections
(1929) Vozvrashchenie Chorba ("The Return of Chorb"). Fifteen short stories & twenty-24 verse form, around Russian, by "V. Sirin". (1947) Nine Stories (1956) Vesna five Fial'te i personally drugie rasskazy ("Spring in Fialta and other stories") (1958) Nabokov's Dozen: A Collection of Thirteen Stories (Also reprinted as Spring in Fialta and First Love and Other Stories.) (1966) Nabokov's Quartet (1968) Nabokov's Congeries; reprinted as The Portable Nabokov (1971) (1973) A Russian Beauty and Other Stories (1975) Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories (1976) Details of a Sunset and Other Stories (1995) The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov (alternative title A Collected Stories) -- complete collection of tons short stories

Drama
(1938) Izobretenie Val'sturmarbeiteilung (The Waltz Invention); English translation The Waltz Invention: The Play within 3 Acts (1966) (1974) Lolita: A Screenplay (Despite the credits given in the earliest film version, this was non utilized.) (1984) The Man from the USSR and Other Plays

Poetry
(1916) Stikhi ("Poems"). Sixty-eight verse form within Russian. (1918) Al'manakh: Dva Puti (An Almanac: 2 Paths"). Twelve poems by Nabokov and eight by Andrei Balashov, in Russian. (1922) Grozd ("A Clump"). Thirty-six poems in Russian, by "V. Sirin". (1923) Gornii Put' ("A Empyreal Path"). One hundred and twenty-eight poems in Russian, by "Vl. Sirin". (1929) Vozvrashchenie Chorba ("A Link to of Chorb"). Fifteen short stories and twenty-four poems, in Russian, by "V. Sirin". (1952) Stikhotvoreniia 1929–1951 ("Verse form 1929–1951") Fifteen poems in Russian. (1959) Poems. The contents were later incorporated within Poems and Problems. (1971) Poems and Problems (a collection of poetry and chess problems) ISBN 0070457247 (1979) Stikhi ("Verse form"). Two hundred and twenty-two poems in Russian.

Translations
From French into Russian
(1922) Nikolka Persik'' Translation of Romain Rolland's novel Colas Breugnon.

From English into Russian
(1923) ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Ð?нÑ? в Ñ?тране чудеÑ?)

From Russian into English
(1945) Three Russian Poets: Selections from Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tyutchev. Expanded British edition: Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev: Poems (1947) (1958) A Hero of our Time, by Mikhail Lermontov. (1960) The Song of Igor's Campaign: An Epic of the Twelfth Century (1964) Eugene Onegin, by Aleksandr Pushkin, in prose. Includes "Notes on Prosody". Revised edition (1975).

Nonfiction

Criticism
(1944) Nikolai Gogol (1963) Notes on Prosody (Later appeared within Eugene Onegin.) (1980) Lectures on Literature (1980) Lectures on Ulysses''. Facsimiles of Nabokov's notes. (1981) Lectures on Russian Literature (1983) Lectures on Don Quixote

Autobiographical and other
(1951) Conclusive Evidence: A Memoir - first version of Nabokov's autobiography. (British edition titled Speak, Memory: A Memoir) (1954) Drugie Berega (Другие берега, "More Shores") - revised version of the autobiography (1967) Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited - final revised and extended edition of Conclusive Evidence. It includes information on his work as a lepidopterist. (1973) Strong Opinions. Interviews, reviews, letters to editors. (1979) The Nabokov–Wilson Letters Letters between Nabokov and Edmund Wilson (1984) Perepiska s Sestroi (ПерепиÑ?ка Ñ? СеÑ?трой (Correspondence with the Sister)) Correspondence between Nabokov and Helene Sikorski; also includes some letters to his brother Kirill (1987) Carrousel. Three recently rediscovered short texts. (1989) Selected Letters

Lepidoptery
(2000) ''Nabokov's Butterflies, collected works on butterflies. ISBN 0807085405

Works about Nabokov

Biography

By far the best biography is the large, two-volume work by Brian Boyd. A photograph collection complements this. Boyd, Brian. Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian years. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990. ISBN 0-691-06794-5 (hardback) 1997. ISBN 0-691-02470-7 (paperback). London: Chatto & Windus, 1990. ISBN 0-7011-3700-2 (hardback) Boyd, Brian, Vladimir Nabokov: The American years. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-691-06797-X (hardback) 1993. 0-691-02471-5 (paperback). London: Chatto & Windus, 1992. ISBN 0-7011-3701-0 (hardback) Proffer, Elendea, ed. Vladimir Nabokov: A pictorial biography.'' Ann Arbor, Mich.: Ardis, 1991. ISBN 0-87501-078-4 (a collection of photographs)

Bibliography

Fictional works

Peter Medak's short television film, Nabokov on Kafka, is a dramatization of Nabokov's lectures on Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. The part of Nabokov is played by Christopher Plummer.

Lepidoptery
Johnson, Kurt, and Steve Coates. ''Nabokov's blues: The scientific odyssey of a literary genius. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-137330-6 (very accessibly written) Sartori, Michel, ed. Les Papillons de Nabokov. [The butterflies of Nabokov.] Lausanne: Musée cantonal de Zoologie, 1993. ISBN 2-9700051-0-7 (exhibition catalogue, primarily in English) Zimmer, Dieter. A guide to Nabokov's butterflies and moths.'' Privately published, 2001. ISBN 3-00-007609-3 ([http://www.d-e-zimmer.de/guide.html web page])