Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States, where he began writing in English. Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945 and lived mostly on the East Coast before returning to Europe in 1961, where he settled in Montreux, Switzerland.
Alice Babette Toklas was an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century, and the life partner of American writer Gertrude Stein.
Inez Milholland Boissevain was a leading American suffragist, lawyer, and peace activist.
Edmund Wilson Jr. was an American writer, literary critic and journalist. He is widely regarded as one of the most important literary critics of the 20th century. Wilson began his career as a journalist, writing for publications such as Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. He helped to edit The New Republic, served as chief book critic for The New Yorker, and was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books. Wilson was the author of more than twenty books, including Axel's Castle, Patriotic Gore, and a work of fiction, Memoirs of Hecate County. He was a friend of many notable figures of the time, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and John Dos Passos. His scheme for a Library of America series of national classic works came to fruition through the efforts of Jason Epstein after Wilson's death. He was a two-time winner of the National Book Award and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964.
"Annabel Lee" is the last complete poem composed by American author Edgar Allan Poe. Like many of Poe's poems, it explores the theme of the death of a beautiful woman. The narrator, who fell in love with Annabel Lee when they were young, has a love for her so strong that even angels are envious. He retains his love for her after her death. There has been debate over who, if anyone, was the inspiration for "Annabel Lee". Though many women have been suggested, Poe's wife Virginia Eliza Clemm Poe is one of the more credible candidates. Written in 1849, it was not published until shortly after Poe's death that same year.
Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov published in 1969.
Speak, Memory is an autobiographical memoir by writer Vladimir Nabokov. The book includes individual essays published between 1936 and 1951 to create the first edition in 1951. Nabokov's revised and extended edition appeared in 1966.
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is the first English language novel by Vladimir Nabokov, written from late 1938 to early 1939 in Paris and first published in 1941. A work centred on language and its inability to convey any satisfactory definition, it has been identified as a forerunner of the postmodernist novel.
Bill the Conqueror is a novel by P.G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 13 November 1924 by Methuen & Co., London, and in the United States on 20 February 1925 by George H. Doran, New York, the story having previously been serialised in The Saturday Evening Post from 24 May to 12 July 1924.
Laughter in the Dark is a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov and serialised in Sovremennye zapiski in 1932.
Look at the Harlequins! is a novel written by Vladimir Nabokov, first published in 1974. The work was Nabokov's final published novel before his death in 1977.
King, Queen, Knave was the second novel written by Vladimir Nabokov while living in Berlin and sojourning at resorts in the Baltic. Written in the years 1927–8, it was published as Король, дама, валет in Russian in October 1928 and then translated into German by Siegfried von Vegesack as König, Dame, Bube: ein Spiel mit dem Schicksal. Forty years later the novel was translated into English by Nabokov's son Dmitri, with significant changes made by the author. A film adaptation only loosely based on the novel followed in 1972.
Mary Virginia Terhune, also known by her penname Marion Harland, was an American author who was prolific and bestselling in both fiction and non-fiction genres. Born in Amelia County, Virginia, she began her career writing articles at the age of 14, using various pennames until 1853, when she settled on Marion Harland. Her first novel Alone was published in 1854 and became an "emphatic success" following its second printing the next year. For fifteen years she was a prolific writer of best-selling women's novels, classified then as "plantation fiction", as well as writing numerous serial works, short stories, and essays for magazines.
"Spring in Fialta" is a short story written by Vladimir Nabokov in 1936, originally as Весна в Фиальте in Russian, during his exile in Berlin. The English translation was performed by Nabokov and Peter Pertzov. Spring in Fialta is included in Nine Stories and Nabokov's Dozen.
"The Leonardo" is a short story written in Russian by Vladimir Nabokov in Berlin in the summer of 1933. It was first published as Korolyyok in Posledniye Novosti in Paris the same year, and in 1956 as part of the collection Vesna v Fialte. After its translation into English by the author and his son Dmitri Nabokov it was incorporated into the collection A Russian Beauty and Other Stories and published in 1971.
Lolita is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with a 12-year-old girl, Dolores Haze, whom he kidnaps and sexually abuses after becoming her stepfather. "Lolita", the Spanish nickname for Dolores, is what he calls her privately. The novel was originally written in English and first published in Paris in 1955 by Olympia Press.
Lad: A Dog is a 1919 American novel written by Albert Payson Terhune and published by E. P. Dutton. Composed of twelve short stories first published in magazines, the novel is based on the life of Terhune's real-life Rough Collie, Lad. Born in 1902, the real-life Lad was an unregistered collie of unknown lineage originally owned by Terhune's father. Lad's death in 1918 was mourned by many of the story's fans, particularly children.
Further Adventures of Lad, also known as Dog Stories Every Child Should Know, is a 1922 American novel written by Albert Payson Terhune and published by George H. Doran. A follow-up to Lad: A Dog, it contains an additional eleven short stories featuring a fictional version of Terhune's real-life rough collie Lad, including the stories of Lad's initial arrival at the "Place", the death of his mate, and the day of his own death. Most of the stories were originally published in various magazines, and touch on themes of justice and the concepts of right and wrong. Terhune notes that he decided to publish the novel due to numerous letters received in response to the first novel, and the thousands of visitors who came to Sunnybank to visit the real-life Lad's grave. Though he initially intended for Further Adventures of Lad to be the final book of Lad stories, he would eventually publish one more book of stories, Lad of Sunnybank, in 1929.
Douglas McCrae Black was an American lawyer and publishing house executive, president of Doubleday and Company from 1946 to 1963 and president of the American Book Publishers Council.
"That in Aleppo Once..." is a short story written by Russian-born author Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977). First published in Atlantic Monthly in 1943, the story takes epistolary form, with an unnamed narrator describing his recollections of himself and his wife's deteriorating relationship while fleeing German occupation during Case Anton. The narrator reveals to his correspondent the likelihood his wife was not real, examining this premise during the account of events.
