DESPAIR
by Nabokov, Vladimir
- Used
- first
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Rochester, Michigan, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
DESPAIR, Putnam, 1966, first American edition, fine in just about fine dw.
Synopsis
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born on April 23, 1899, in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Nabokovs were known for their high culture and commitment to public service, and the elder Nabokov was an outspoken opponent of antisemitism and one of the leaders of the opposition party, the Kadets. In 1919, following the Bolshevik revolution, he took his family into exile. Four years later he was shot and killed at a political rally in Berlin while trying to shield the speaker from right-wing assassins. The Nabokov household was trilingual, and as a child Nabokov was already reading Wells, Poe, Browning, Keats, Flaubert, Verlaine, Rimbaud, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, alongside the popular entertainments of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Jules Verne. As a young man, he studied Slavic and romance languages at Trinity College, Cambridge, taking his honors degree in 1922. For the next eighteen years he lived in Berlin and Paris, writing prolifically in Russian under the pseudonym Sirin and supporting himself through translations, lessons in English and tennis, and by composing the first crossword puzzles in Russian. In 1925 he married Vera Slonim, with whom he had one child, a son, Dmitri. Having already fled Russia and Germany, Nabokov became a refugee once more in 1940, when he was forced to leave France for the United States. There he taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Cornell. He also gave up writing in Russian and began composing fiction in English. In his afterword to Lolita he claimed: "My private tragedy, which cannot, and indeed should not, be anybody's concern, is that I had to abandon my natural idiom, my untrammeled, rich, and infinitely docile Russian tongue for a second-rate brand of English, devoid of any of those apparatuses--the baffling mirror, the black velvet backdrop, the implied associations and traditions--which the native illusionist, frac-tails flying, can magically use to transcend the heritage in his own way." [p. 317] Yet Nabokov's American period saw the creation of what are arguably his greatest works, Bend Sinister (1947), Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), and Pale Fire (1962), as well as the translation of his earlier Russian novels into English. He also undertook English translations of works by Lermontov and Pushkin and wrote several books of criticism. Vladimir Nabokov died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1977.
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Details
- Bookseller
- THE FINE BOOKS COMPANY
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 06848
- Title
- DESPAIR
- Author
- Nabokov, Vladimir
- Book Condition
- Used
- Edition
- First Edition
- Publisher
- Putnam
- Date Published
- 1966
- Keywords
- FIRST EDITIONS
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About the Seller
THE FINE BOOKS COMPANY
Biblio member since 2009
Rochester, Michigan
About THE FINE BOOKS COMPANY
The Fine Books Company, which began purchasing rare and collectible items in 1976 and selling same in 1979, is located everywhere a computer may be accessed. A 34 year member of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America and The International League of Antiquarian Booksellers, we have travelled to, purchased and sold books on, every continent ( save Antarctica as we are unaware of any commercial book activity there). Although we may be biased towards the fields of creativity, namely all genres of fiction in first edition, we have branched out to include many areas of non-fiction as well so that our stock of over 40,000 items, which includes books, periodicals, letters and manuscripts, is now more balanced than it has ever been before. We issue occasional virtual catalogues (which only reveal a small portion of our newest inventory), quickly reply to all inquiries, do appraisals upon request and somehow have managed to publish 18 books along the way. A "Heritage" member of AbeBooks as well, our specialty is service.
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- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
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