Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is a profoundly provocative and masterfully written novel that explores themes of obsession, passion, and moral ambiguity. The narrative follows Humbert Humbert, a sophisticated and erudite European émigré, who becomes infatuated with his twelve-year-old stepdaughter, Dolores Haze, whom he affectionately nicknames "Lolita." Their illicit and tumultuous relationship drives Humbert into a labyrinth of deception, manipulation, and...

Pale Fire is a novel constructed around the last great poem of a fictional American poet, John Shade, and an account of his death. The poem appears in full, and the narrative develops through the lengthy, and increasingly eccentric, notes by his posthumous editor.

Vladimir Nabokov's shocking masterpiece, now in a beautifully designed clothbound edition. Poet and pervert, Humbert Humbert becomes obsessed by twelve-year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically, out of love, 'to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets'. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or...

Professor Timofey Pnin, late of Tsarist Russia, is now precariously perched on a college campus in the fast beating heart of the USA. In a series of funny and sad misunderstandings, Pnin does halting battle with American life and language.

A man at his desk is interrupted by the appearance of a woodland elf in his room; the piano maestro Bachmann ends his career; a barber shaves the face of a man who once tortured him; a shy dreamer makes a deal with the Devil. In these sixty-five stories of magic and melancholy, Nabokov displays an astonishing range of inventiveness,...

One of the best-known novels of the 20th century, Lolita tells the controversial story of Humbert Humbert who falls in love with twelve-year-old Lolita. Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta- the tip of my tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo....

Thirteen strangely wrought stories make up Nabokov's Dozen. In some of these stories, shadowy people pass through, cooped up by life, mangled by it, with nowhere to escape to. Their dreams lie stifled, smothered by routine and repetition, and frustrations lurk in all the corners. In others, there are elusive glimpses of fleeting happiness, which flutter away before they can...

This dark satire follows the egotistical Hermann Hermann, a murderer who thinks himself an artist. Self-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his own personality, Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. But then a chance meeting with a man he believes to be his double reveals a frightening 'split' in Hermann's nature. With shattering immediacy, Nabokov...

A landmark collection of verse from one of the twentieth century's supreme writers. These masterly poems span the decades of Nabokov's career, from Music, written in 1914, to the short, playful To Vera, composed in 1974. The University Poem, one of Nabokov's major poetic works, is here in English for the first time. This extraordinary autobiographical poem looks back at...

Nabokov's other great love story, following an extraordinary relationship across decades and continents. Written in mischievous and magically flowing prose, Ada or Ardor is a romance that follows Ada from her first childhood meeting with Van Veen on his uncle's country estate, in a 'dream-bright' America, through eighty years of rapture, as they cross continents, are continually parted and reunited....

The Defense is Vladimir Nabokov's early novel about a chess-playing genius, reissued in Modern Classics as part of the Nabokov relaunch. This dazzling story features the coarse, strange yet oddly endearing chess-playing genius Luzhin. Discovering his prodigious gift in boyhood and rising to the rank of International Grandmaster, Luzhin develops a lyrical passion for chess that renders the real world...

‘One of the greatest books I've ever read. Its heart is strange, but it is huge; let yours beat in response’ MARY GAITSKILL Pale Fire, a 999-line poem, is the final work of the celebrated—and recently murdered—American author, John Francis Shade. Here that poem is transcribed, introduced, and annotated (at length) by Shade's fellow scholar, neighbour, and apparent friend, Charles...

Introducing Little Clothbound Classics — irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas, and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. Thirteen ingeniously crafted stories make up Vladimir Nabokov's baker's dozen. In some of these stories, shadowy people pass through, cooped up by life, with nowhere to escape. In others, elusive glimpses of fleeting happiness, which...

Hilarious, intelligent, and moving, Pnin is the tale of a generation irrevocably severed from its past. Professor Timofey Pnin, late of Tsarist Russia, is now precariously perched at the heart of an American campus. Battling with American life and language, Pnin must face great hazards in this new world—the ruination of his beautiful lumber-room-as-office; the removal of his teeth and...

Reissue of one of the best-known novels of the 20th century – the controversial story of Humbert Humbert who falls in love with twelve-year-old Lolita. 'You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.' Humbert Humbert, a European intellectual adrift in America, is a middle-aged college professor. Haunted by memories of a lost adolescent love, he falls...

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he'll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? ...Or is he all of these? Lolita invites readers to delve into these troubling questions, masterfully weaving...

90 classic titles celebrating 90 years of Penguin Books And this is fantasy, the flutter, the rapture of fantasy! A bashful dragon, a lost wood-sprite, the prophet Elijah, and the Devil disguised as a middle-aged woman appear in these playful, exuberant stories by Vladimir Nabokov. So do a vengeful husband, a barber confronting his torturer, and the author himself, as...

An extraordinary collection of Nabokov's little-known published material from across his life - from student essays to his last interviews. The last major collection of Nabokov's published material, Think, Write, Speak brings together a treasure trove of previously uncollected texts from across the author's extraordinary career. Each phase of his wandering life is included, from a precocious essay written while...

The final masterwork that was nearly destroyed, from one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century. Dr Philip Wild, a man of brilliance, wit, fortune and tremendous bulk, is used to suffering humiliations at the hands of his wife, the younger, slender, and rudely promiscuous Flora. But in a novel, a 'maddening masterpiece' documenting her infidelities, written by one...

The autobiography of one of the world's most talented and intriguing writers, reissuing in Penguin Modern Classics. Speak, Memory, said Vladimir Nabokov. And immediately there came flooding back to him a host of enchanting recollections - of his comfortable childhood and adolescence, of his rich, liberal-minded father, his beautiful mother, an army of relations and family hangers-on, and of grand...

Nightmarish, witty and immaculately conceived, Invitation to a Beheading unsparingly teases out the illogic of tyranny and will establish Nabokov in readers' minds as a serious and intelligent writer. Written in Berlin in 1934, Invitation to a Beheading contains all the surprise, excitement and magical intensity of a work created in two brief weeks of sustained inspiration. It takes us...

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he'll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these?

Fifty new books at £1 each, celebrating the pioneering spirit of the Penguin Modern Classics series, from inspiring essays to groundbreaking fiction and poetry. 'The illegible signature of teetering disaster' Three great stories—The Aurelian, Signs and Symbols, and Lance—the latter is both a derisive attack on science fiction and an attempt to imagine the real pain and horror that would...

A beautiful hardcover edition of one of Nabokov's greatest masterpieces, the fantastical love story that was the glorious culmination of his career as a novelist. This story of a man's lifelong entanglement with his sister is not only a love story; it manages also to be a fairy tale, an epic, a philosophical treatise on the nature of time, a...

"Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster." Thus begins Vladimir Nabokov's Laughter in the Dark; this, the author tells us, is the whole story—except that...

The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. With a new introduction by Claire Messud. “The conjunction of a sense of humour with a sense of horror [results in] satire of a very special kind.” —The...

From one of the 20th century's great writers comes one of the finest autobiographies of our time. "Scintillating … One finds here amazing glimpses into the life of a world that has vanished forever." —The New York Times Speak, Memory was first published by Vladimir Nabokov in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised and republished in 1966. Nabokov's...