Epilogue.

Even by the standards of genius, Vladimir Nabokov's work habits were odd. He wrote much of Lolita in the backseat of the family car, a black 1946 Oldsmobile. (He...

Books: Revisions

This is Andrew Field's third crack at the literary and biographical puzzle that was Vladimir Nabokov. The first, Nabokov: His Life in Art (1967), demonstrated...

Books: Humming Along With Nabokov

"Name?" "Lo-lee-tah." She spoke her name like a steam radiator with consonants. "Last name?" "Lolita Rooney-Burton-Winn-Fortensky-Guccioni," she said, omitting...

BOOKS: DIVINITY IN THE DETAILS

VLADIMIR NABOKOV DIED IN 1977 to mixed reviews. Not everyone was captivated by his erudition, multilingual wordplay and narrative frolics. But those who tuned to...

Books: Six Masters, Seen By a Seventh

LECTURES ON RUSSIAN LITERATURE by Vladimir Nabokov edited by Fredson Bowers; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; 324 pages; $19.95 Most classroom lectures die with the...

Books: Prospero's Progress

ONE cannot hope to understand an author if one cannot even pronounce his name," Vladimir Nabokov has observed. The point, originally made about Nikolai Gogol...

Books: Casting the First Shadow

Vladimir Nabokov has lived all his adult life as an endangered (and dangerous) species. Woe unto the literary pretender who does not get his facts and grammar...

Books: Vladimir Nabokov: 1899-1977

Vladimir Nabokov was, in his own words, "an American writer born in Russia and educated in England, where I studied French literature before spending 15 years in...

Books: Chain Mail

THE NABOKOV-WILSON LETTERS: 1940-1971 Edited by Simon Karlinsky Harper & Row; 346 pages; $15 During their long, lively correspondence, they addressed each other...

Books: Madness & Art

NABOKOV: HIS LIFE IN ART by Andrew Field. 397 pages. Little, Brown. $8.95. Vladimir Nabokov once remarked that the ideal reader for his books would be...