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Despair: A Novel
by NABOKOV, Vladimir
- Used
- first
- Condition
- See description
- Seller
-
Winchester, Virginia, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1966. First American Edition. First Printing. Octavo (22cm); black cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine, and author's initials embossed onto front cover; pink topstain; dustjacket; [6],7-222,[2]pp. Mild forward lean, gilt titling a little rubbed, with light wear to extremities, and a few faint scuffs and tiny stains to covers; top-stain somewhat faded; generic bookplate to front endpaper, else contents clean; Very Good. In Juliar's variant B dustjacket (no priority), with the title printed in black at upper front flap; price intact but lower corner of front flap clipped; light rubbing with a bit of soil to extremities, Very Good.
Nabokov's seventh novel, first published in English by John Long in 1937. Basis for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1978 film of the same name, starring Dirk Bogarde. JULIAR A15.3.
Nabokov's seventh novel, first published in English by John Long in 1937. Basis for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1978 film of the same name, starring Dirk Bogarde. JULIAR A15.3.
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
- Lorne Bair Rare Books
(US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 60561
- Title
- Despair: A Novel
- Author
- NABOKOV, Vladimir
- Book Condition
- Used
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First American Edition
- Publisher
- G.P. Putnam's Sons
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1966
- Bookseller catalogs
- Modern Fiction;
Terms of Sale
Lorne Bair Rare Books
All items are offered subject to prior sale. Orders must be prepaid, though billing may be arranged for institutions and customers with established credit. Payment may be made by Check, Money Order, Paypal or by valid credit card (Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover). Any item may be returned within 10 days of receipt for full refund. Signed and manuscript items carry an unlimited guarantee of authenticity.
About the Seller
Lorne Bair Rare Books
Biblio member since 2006
Winchester, Virginia
About Lorne Bair Rare Books
Lorne Bair Rare Books specializes in books, mansuscripts, and printed ephemera relating to American Social History, with an emphasis on radical and utopian movements of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. We are available in our showroom by appointment, at shows, and on-line through various booksellers' sites or at our website www.lornebair.com.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Octavo
- Another of the terms referring to page or book size, octavo refers to a standard printer's sheet folded four times, producing...
- Cloth
- "Cloth-bound" generally refers to a hardcover book with cloth covering the outside of the book covers. The cloth is stretched...
- G
- Good describes the average used and worn book that has all pages or leaves present. Any defects must be noted. (as defined by AB...
- Spine
- The outer portion of a book which covers the actual binding. The spine usually faces outward when a book is placed on a shelf....
- Rubbing
- Abrasion or wear to the surface. Usually used in reference to a book's boards or dust-jacket.
- Gilt
- The decorative application of gold or gold coloring to a portion of a book on the spine, edges of the text block, or an inlay in...
- Bookplate
- Highly sought after by some collectors, a book plate is an inscribed or decorative device that identifies the owner, or former...
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