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Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years
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Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years Paperback - 1993

by Brian Boyd

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Cited as one of the best books of 1990 by The New York Times and Time magazine, this major biography describes Nabokov's escape from Russia, his education at Cambridge, and his impoverished years in Germany and France, until the coming of Hitler forced him to flee to the United States with his wife and son. 56 halftones.

Reader reviews for Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years

From the publisher

This first major critical biography of Vladimir Nabokov, one of the greatest of twentieth-century writers, finally allows us full access to the dramatic details of his life and the depths of his art. An intensely private man, Nabokov was uprooted first by the Russian Revolution and then by World War II. Transformed into a permanent wanderer, he did not achieve fame until late in life, with the success of Lolita. In this first of two volumes, Brian Boyd vividly describes the liberal milieu of the aristocratic Nabokovs, their escape from Russia, Nabokov's education at Cambridge, and the murder of his father in Berlin. Boyd then turns to the years that Nabokov spent, impoverished, in Germany and France, until the coming of Hitler forced him to flee, with wife and son, to the United States. This volume stands on its own as a fascinating exploration of Nabokov's Russian years and Russian worlds, prerevolutionary and migr.

In the course of his ten years' work on the biography, Boyd traveled along Nabokov's trail everywhere from Yalta to Palo Alto. The only scholar to have had free access to the Nabokov archives in Montreux and the Library of Congress, he also interviewed at length Nabokov's family and scores of his friends and associates.

For the general reader, Boyd offers an introduction to Nabokov the man, his works, and his world. For the specialist, he provides a basis for all future research on Nabokov's life and art, as he dates and describes the composition of all Nabokov's works, published and unpublished.

Boyd investigates Nabokov's relation to and his independence from his time, examines the special structures of his mind and thought, and explains the relations between his philosophy and his innovations of literary strategy and style. At the same time he provides succinct introductions to all the fiction, dramas, memoirs, and major verse; presents detailed analyses of the major books that break new ground for the scholar, while providing easy paths into the works for other readers; and shows the relationship between Nabokov's life and the themes and subjects of his art.

First line

NABOKOV had left Russia in 1919 on a crowded little cargo ship, playing chess with his father on its deck as Bolshevik machine guns strafed the waters of Sebastopol harbor.

From the rear cover

"This is the first comprehensive account of Nabokov's life and oeuvre. The book's wide-ranging research and deep affinity for Nabokov's writings should establish it as the single indispensable source on its subject for many decades to come."--Simon Karlinsky, University of California, Berkeley

Details

  • Title Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years
  • Author Brian Boyd
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition Second printing
  • Pages 648
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Princeton University Press, Ewing, New Jersey, U.S.A.
  • Publication date 1993-01-31
  • ISBN 9780691024707 / 0691024707
  • Weight 2.11 lbs (0.96 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.08 x 6.28 x 1.58 in (23.06 x 15.95 x 4.01 cm)
  • Category Biography / Autobiography
  • Dewey Decimal Code B

Media reviews

Citations

  • Publishers Weekly, 02/08/1993, Page 0

About the author

Brian Boyd is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of English at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of the prize-winning Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years (Princeton 1990), Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years (Princeton 1991), and Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness. Referred to in a recent journal as "the great man of Nabokov studies," he has also edited Nabokov's English novels and autobiography for the Library of America and Nabokov's Butterflies for Beacon Press.

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Vladimir Nabokov
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Vladimir Nabokov

by Brian Boyd

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Vladimir Nabokov : The Russian Years
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Vladimir Nabokov : The Russian Years

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Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. 1st Edition 2nd Printing. Trade Paperback. Very Good/Wraps. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. First Edition, 2nd printing. Trade PB in photo wraps. Very Good. Creased rear cover, bent bottom front cover, light bottom page soil, else Fine and unmarked. 607pp inc. textual footnotes, Index.
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Vladimir Nabokov : The Russian Years

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Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years
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Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years

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Vladimir Nabokov The Russian Years
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Vladimir Nabokov The Russian Years

by Brian Boyd

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  • Paperback
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Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years (Revised)
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Vladimir Nabokov : The Russian Years
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Vladimir Nabokov : The Russian Years

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Vladimir Nabokov : The Russian Years
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Vladimir Nabokov : The Russian Years

by Boyd, Brian

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Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years

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Vladimir Nabokov : The Russian Years
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Vladimir Nabokov : The Russian Years

by Boyd, Brian

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