Nabokov: Novels 1955-1962: Lolita / Pnin / Pale Fire (Library of America)

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Seller Comments: FINE AS-NEW First Edition (Orig. 1996) First Printing LOA hardcover, FINE mylar-protected LOA jacket w/ EXCELLENT edges & corners & showing orig. 35.00 price at bottom-right inside-front flyleaf, AS-NEW silk-finish British-green Brillianta linen-over-boards cover w/ sharp NEW edges & corners, IMMACULATE smooth-cut text-block exterior, IMPECCABLE handsome white on green LOA-patterned end-papers on heavy stock, NEW sewn binding w/ tight signatures & green-white-checked cloth bands at spine-caps & emerald silk page-marker ribbon, PRISTINE interior handsomely printed in 10-point Linotron Galliard on SUPERB acid-free Ecusta Nyalite paper * 5.0" x 8.12" x 1.24", 0.75 kg, 904 pp; W/ slipcase 5.36" x 8.48" x 1.34", 0.85 kg * CONTENTS: Lolita (1), Pnin (299), Pale Fire (437); Appendix: Lolita: A Screenplay (669); Chronology (837), Note on the Texts (869), Notes (873) * ABOUT THE BOOK: This LOA volume is the 2nd of 3 volumes that contain the most authoritative versions of the English works of the brilliant Russian émigré, Vladimir Nabokov. "Lolita" (1955), Nabokov's single most famous work, is one of the most controversial & widely read books of its time. Funny, satiric, poignant, filled w/ allusions to earlier American writers, it is the "confession" of a middle-aged, sophisticated European émigré's passionate obsession w/ a 12-year-old American "nymphet," & the story of their wanderings across a late 1940s America of highways & motels. Of its deeper meanings, Nabokov characteristically wrote: "I am neither a reader nor a writer of didactic fiction, and . . . Lolita has no moral in tow. For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm." (Nabokov's film adaptation of Lolita, as originally written for director Stanley Kubrick, is also included.) "Pnin" (1957) is a comic masterpiece about a gentle, bald Russian émigré professor in an American college town who is never quite able to master its language, its politics, or its train schedule. Nabokov's years as a teacher provided rich background for this satirical picture of academic life, w/ an unforgettable figure at its center: "It was the world that was absent-minded and it was Pnin whose business it was to set it straight. His life was a constant war w/ insensate objects that fell apart, or attacked him, or refused to function, or viciously got themselves lost as soon as they entered the sphere of his existence." "Pale Fire" (1962) is a tour de force in the form of an ostensibly autobiographical poem by a recently deceased American poet & a critical commentary by an academic who is something other than what he seems. Its unique structure, pitting artist against seemingly worshipful critic, sets the stage for some of Nabokov's most intricate games of deception and concealment. "Pretending to be a curio," wrote Mary McCarthy, "it cannot disguise the fact that it is one of the great works of art of this century." The texts of this volume incorporate Nabokov's penciled corrections in his own copies of his works which correct long-standing errors. * VLADIMIR NABOKOV: After a brilliant literary career writing in Russian, Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) immigrated to the United States in 1940 & went on to an even more brilliant one in English. Between 1939 & 1974 he wrote the autobiography & 8 novels collected by the LOA in th authoritative 3-volume set. * THE LIBRARY OF AMERICA is an award-winning, nonprofit program dedicated to publishing America's best & most significant writing in handsome, enduring volumes, featuring authoritative texts. Hailed as "the most important book-publishing project in the nation's history" (Newsweek), this acclaimed series is restoring America's literary heritage in "the finest-looking, longest-lasting edition ever made" (New Republic).

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Seller Comments: Fairly worn but readable and intact. If applicable: Dust jacket disc or access code may not be included.

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