Vladimir Nabokov was one of the most fascinating literary figures of the 20th century. Known primarily as the author of Lolita, he was at first scorned as a pornographer, but eventually hailed as the creator of a masterpiece. A Russian born into wealth and privilege, he lost everything at 15 and was forced into exile by the Bolshevik Revolution. Battling poverty in Berlin and married to a Jewish woman, he fled first to Paris and then then to America, always barely one step ahead of the Nazis. His career spanned 50 years of writing brilliant novels, teaching at Wellesley and Cornell, and establishing himself as a respected scientist in the field of lepidoptery while working at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology.
This work is a guide to Nabokov’s life and his many achievements. The encyclopedic format invites browsing through the alphabetically arranged entries, from ACADEME, that rarefied realm of colleges and universities where Nabokov’s most biting satires are afoot, to ZOORLAND, a made-up totalitarian country so fiendishly devoted to equality that the arts are banned because they give talented people opportunities to rise above the mass of commoners.

Larry Gaffney taught composition and literature at Penn State University and Lock Haven University. He lives in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

Larry Gaffney
Format: softcover (7 x 10)
Pages:
Bibliographic Info: bibliography, index
Copyright Date: 2023
pISBN: 978-1-4766-9134-3
eISBN: 978-1-4766-5078-4
Imprint: McFarland