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Vintage Nabokov
Vintage Readers are a perfect introduction to some of the greatest modern writers presented in attractive, accessible paperback editions.
“It was Nabokov’s gift to bring paradise wherever he alighted.” —John Updike, The New York Review of Books
Novelist, poet, critic, translator, and, above all, a peerless imaginer, Vladimir Nabokov was arguably the most dazzling prose stylist of the twentieth century. In novels like Lolita , Pale Fire , and Ada, or Ardor , he turned language into an instrument of ecstasy.
Vintage Nabokov includes sections 1-10 of his most famous and controversial novel, Lolita ; the stories “The Return of Chorb,” “The Aurelian,” “A Forgotten Poet,” “Time and Ebb,” “Signs and Symbols,” “The Vane Sisters,” and “Lance”; and chapter 12 from his memoir Speak, Memory .
“It was Nabokov’s gift to bring paradise wherever he alighted.” —John Updike, The New York Review of Books
Novelist, poet, critic, translator, and, above all, a peerless imaginer, Vladimir Nabokov was arguably the most dazzling prose stylist of the twentieth century. In novels like Lolita , Pale Fire , and Ada, or Ardor , he turned language into an instrument of ecstasy.
Vintage Nabokov includes sections 1-10 of his most famous and controversial novel, Lolita ; the stories “The Return of Chorb,” “The Aurelian,” “A Forgotten Poet,” “Time and Ebb,” “Signs and Symbols,” “The Vane Sisters,” and “Lance”; and chapter 12 from his memoir Speak, Memory .
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 6, 2004
14 people are currently reading
119 people want to read
About the author
Vladimir Nabokov
865 books15.2k followersVladimir Nabokov (Russian: Владимир Набоков) was a writer defined by a life of forced movement and extraordinary linguistic transformation. Born into a wealthy, liberal aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, Russia, he grew up trilingual, speaking Russian, English, and French in a household that nurtured his intellectual curiosities, including a lifelong passion for butterflies. This seemingly idyllic, privileged existence was abruptly shattered by the Bolshevik Revolution, which forced the family into permanent exile in 1919. This early, profound experience of displacement and the loss of a homeland became a central, enduring theme in his subsequent work, fueling his exploration of memory, nostalgia, and the irretrievable past.
The first phase of his literary life began in Europe, primarily in Berlin, where he established himself as a leading voice among the Russian émigré community under the pseudonym "Vladimir Sirin". During this prolific period, he penned nine novels in his native tongue, showcasing a precocious talent for intricate plotting and character study. Works like The Defense explored obsession through the extended metaphor of chess, while Invitation to a Beheading served as a potent, surreal critique of totalitarian absurdity. In 1925, he married Véra Slonim, an intellectual force in her own right, who would become his indispensable partner, editor, translator, and lifelong anchor.
The escalating shadow of Nazism necessitated another, urgent relocation in 1940, this time to the United States. It was here that Nabokov undertook an extraordinary linguistic metamorphosis, making the challenging yet resolute shift from Russian to English as his primary language of expression. He became a U.S. citizen in 1945, solidifying his new life in North America. To support his family, he took on academic positions, first founding the Russian department at Wellesley College, and later serving as a highly regarded professor of Russian and European literature at Cornell University from 1948 to 1959.
During this academic tenure, he also dedicated significant time to his other great passion: lepidoptery. He worked as an unpaid curator of butterflies at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. His scientific work was far from amateurish; he developed novel taxonomic methods and a groundbreaking, highly debated theory on the migration patterns and phylogeny of the Polyommatus blue butterflies, a hypothesis that modern DNA analysis confirmed decades later.
Nabokov achieved widespread international fame and financial independence with the publication of Lolita in 1955, a novel that was initially met with controversy and censorship battles due to its provocative subject matter concerning a middle-aged literature professor and his obsession with a twelve-year-old girl. The novel's critical and commercial success finally allowed him to leave teaching and academia behind. In 1959, he and Véra moved permanently to the quiet luxury of the Montreux Palace Hotel in Switzerland, where he focused solely on writing, translating his earlier Russian works into meticulous English, and studying local butterflies.
His later English novels, such as Pale Fire (1962), a complex, postmodern narrative structured around a 999-line poem and its delusional commentator, cemented his reputation as a master stylist and a technical genius. His literary style is characterized by intricate wordplay, a profound use of allusion, structural complexity, and an insistence on the artist's total, almost tyrannical, control over their created world. Nabokov often expressed disdain for what he termed "topical trash" and the simplistic interpretations of Freudian psychoanalysis, preferring instead to focus on the power of individual consciousness, the mechanics of memory, and the intricate, often deceptive, interplay between art and perceived "reality". His unique body of work, straddling multiple cultures and languages, continues to
The first phase of his literary life began in Europe, primarily in Berlin, where he established himself as a leading voice among the Russian émigré community under the pseudonym "Vladimir Sirin". During this prolific period, he penned nine novels in his native tongue, showcasing a precocious talent for intricate plotting and character study. Works like The Defense explored obsession through the extended metaphor of chess, while Invitation to a Beheading served as a potent, surreal critique of totalitarian absurdity. In 1925, he married Véra Slonim, an intellectual force in her own right, who would become his indispensable partner, editor, translator, and lifelong anchor.
The escalating shadow of Nazism necessitated another, urgent relocation in 1940, this time to the United States. It was here that Nabokov undertook an extraordinary linguistic metamorphosis, making the challenging yet resolute shift from Russian to English as his primary language of expression. He became a U.S. citizen in 1945, solidifying his new life in North America. To support his family, he took on academic positions, first founding the Russian department at Wellesley College, and later serving as a highly regarded professor of Russian and European literature at Cornell University from 1948 to 1959.
During this academic tenure, he also dedicated significant time to his other great passion: lepidoptery. He worked as an unpaid curator of butterflies at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. His scientific work was far from amateurish; he developed novel taxonomic methods and a groundbreaking, highly debated theory on the migration patterns and phylogeny of the Polyommatus blue butterflies, a hypothesis that modern DNA analysis confirmed decades later.
Nabokov achieved widespread international fame and financial independence with the publication of Lolita in 1955, a novel that was initially met with controversy and censorship battles due to its provocative subject matter concerning a middle-aged literature professor and his obsession with a twelve-year-old girl. The novel's critical and commercial success finally allowed him to leave teaching and academia behind. In 1959, he and Véra moved permanently to the quiet luxury of the Montreux Palace Hotel in Switzerland, where he focused solely on writing, translating his earlier Russian works into meticulous English, and studying local butterflies.
His later English novels, such as Pale Fire (1962), a complex, postmodern narrative structured around a 999-line poem and its delusional commentator, cemented his reputation as a master stylist and a technical genius. His literary style is characterized by intricate wordplay, a profound use of allusion, structural complexity, and an insistence on the artist's total, almost tyrannical, control over their created world. Nabokov often expressed disdain for what he termed "topical trash" and the simplistic interpretations of Freudian psychoanalysis, preferring instead to focus on the power of individual consciousness, the mechanics of memory, and the intricate, often deceptive, interplay between art and perceived "reality". His unique body of work, straddling multiple cultures and languages, continues to
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
March 24, 2026
The short stories included in this were very good. The overall quality of the writing was incredible. My two favorites were “Mademoiselle O” and “The Vane Sisters”. This included the first 25 pages of “Lolita” and I saved it for last because I was apprehensive about reading it. Actually just so much worse than I could’ve imagined.
April 12, 2010
I am a Nabokov admirer, so my rating of anything about him probably is not very sincere and cannot be confidently trusted. This statement is "double-true" whenever it's about a text of any kind, by him, read by me in English. This book is no exception.
Vintage Nabokov is a book published by Vintage Books, in a big series of numerous books which are aimed to inroduce contemporary writers, mostly alive and mainly writing in English. The book is composed of some of Nabokov's short stories, both those written in Russian and translated by himself and his son, and those written originally in English. It also includes the first 10 chapters of his well-known Lolita, and a very small part of his autobiography, Speak, Memory.
To speak about Nabokov and his style, you should always repeat the most-repeated: that he is a prose stylist, that he has the widest range of active words among English writers along with James Joyce and Shakespeare, and that he is a wide imaginer and a poet of words. These are all correct and well reclected in this book. But in addition to these facts, I praise Nabokov as a great novelist. He can form great sketches for his stories, and he writes them the best way they can be written. His characters, in the extreme situations they face in his works, reveal their true personalities and go through an inside journey. They are explored and played with by the author, as he slaughters them. Nabokov's stories isolate their characters and give the most importance to his lonesome and loneliness.
Vladimir Nabokov is now a part of narative litterature history, and such an important part it is. His stories are hard to read, very hard actually, but no harder than what it took to write them. They should be read and "Vintage Nabokov" can be a good start point for it.
Vintage Nabokov is a book published by Vintage Books, in a big series of numerous books which are aimed to inroduce contemporary writers, mostly alive and mainly writing in English. The book is composed of some of Nabokov's short stories, both those written in Russian and translated by himself and his son, and those written originally in English. It also includes the first 10 chapters of his well-known Lolita, and a very small part of his autobiography, Speak, Memory.
To speak about Nabokov and his style, you should always repeat the most-repeated: that he is a prose stylist, that he has the widest range of active words among English writers along with James Joyce and Shakespeare, and that he is a wide imaginer and a poet of words. These are all correct and well reclected in this book. But in addition to these facts, I praise Nabokov as a great novelist. He can form great sketches for his stories, and he writes them the best way they can be written. His characters, in the extreme situations they face in his works, reveal their true personalities and go through an inside journey. They are explored and played with by the author, as he slaughters them. Nabokov's stories isolate their characters and give the most importance to his lonesome and loneliness.
Vladimir Nabokov is now a part of narative litterature history, and such an important part it is. His stories are hard to read, very hard actually, but no harder than what it took to write them. They should be read and "Vintage Nabokov" can be a good start point for it.
November 2, 2009
Nabokov writes beautifully, with unique descriptions and perspective. I would probably say though read Lolita, his short stories, or his autobiography. This book's format was too choppy and only gave you a small taste of the three.
April 21, 2009
nabokov is an acquired taste, but a great one. Lyrical prose, though sometimes you might get lost in it.
June 29, 2020
One can't help but marvel at Nabokov's prose. Most of the time I find myself re-reading sentences and paragraphs not because I did not comprehend it, but because it was just plain beautiful. This short story compilation (and a few chapters from Lolita) is a masterpiece.
January 3, 2025
Beautiful prose, but sometimes the sentences would meander for so long I lost track of where they started. I enjoyed the ideas set forth in most of the stories, but I I think they could’ve benefitted from more editing.
July 30, 2012
I sometimes wonder what criteria the mysterious hand that selects the pieces to make up a reader uses. Vintage Nabokov smacks of a certain random sensation, almost, but not quite, Nabokovian in texture. This is not to suggest that anything not worth reading is contained within its cover, merely that when it comes to Nabokov, everything shimmers and sparkles.
The collection opens with 'The Return of Chorb', a short story about a man returning from his honeymoon to perform the task of telling his in-laws that their daughter is dead. In true Nabokovian form the characters come together for a truly well set-up ending. A fantastic story to be sure, but why kick off with it? When I compared this reader with The Portable Nabokov (selected with the author's collaboration) I found that they shared four stories in common - 'Cloud, Castle, Lake', 'Signs and Symbols', 'Lance' and 'The Vane Sisters'. While Vintage Nabokov contains the first ten chapters from Lolita (omitting for some reason the John Ray introduction), The Portable Nabokov contains none of it, contenting itself rather with Nabokov's 'On a Book Entitled Lolita'. Vintage N. closes with chapter twelve of Nabokov's autobiography Speak, Memory, while The Portable N. starts off with excerpts from it. Noticeably chapter twelve is not among them.
Nicely enough, Vintage N. has an English translation of his one French short story 'Mademoiselle O'. On closer inspection I find whoever set out the reader placed the stories in chronological order (although there is no attempt to separate them into his Russian/English stories.) Overall I can't complain, the stories are fantastic, though I cannot help but wonder if maybe an introduction, or even an earlier chapter from Speak, Memory might not have been useful in helping the general peruser learn something about the author.
The collection opens with 'The Return of Chorb', a short story about a man returning from his honeymoon to perform the task of telling his in-laws that their daughter is dead. In true Nabokovian form the characters come together for a truly well set-up ending. A fantastic story to be sure, but why kick off with it? When I compared this reader with The Portable Nabokov (selected with the author's collaboration) I found that they shared four stories in common - 'Cloud, Castle, Lake', 'Signs and Symbols', 'Lance' and 'The Vane Sisters'. While Vintage Nabokov contains the first ten chapters from Lolita (omitting for some reason the John Ray introduction), The Portable Nabokov contains none of it, contenting itself rather with Nabokov's 'On a Book Entitled Lolita'. Vintage N. closes with chapter twelve of Nabokov's autobiography Speak, Memory, while The Portable N. starts off with excerpts from it. Noticeably chapter twelve is not among them.
Nicely enough, Vintage N. has an English translation of his one French short story 'Mademoiselle O'. On closer inspection I find whoever set out the reader placed the stories in chronological order (although there is no attempt to separate them into his Russian/English stories.) Overall I can't complain, the stories are fantastic, though I cannot help but wonder if maybe an introduction, or even an earlier chapter from Speak, Memory might not have been useful in helping the general peruser learn something about the author.
July 22, 2014
Some of the best work ever by Nabokov. Great for a new Nabokovian reader as each excerpt is pretty short and diverse. The beginning of Lolita, some of his best short stories like "The Vane Sisters" and "Signs and Symbols" plus two chapters from Speak, Memory. Would've liked to see a chapter from Pnin (they read episodically like short stories) but oh well.
August 16, 2012
Pretty sentences, clever diction, preciously drawn scenes and people - and little else. Yes, Nabokov is poetic and eloquent, a gifted and skilled artist. But for all that, I can't love his work because it lacks philosophical bite.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews