Research Catalog

Title

Mashen'ka and Korol', dama, valet [photocopy of proofs]

Author

Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1899-1977.

Publication

Ann Arbor : Ardis, 1986.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Nabokova, Vera.
• Szporluk, Mary Ann.

Description

[4], 12-286 leaves, + publisher's letter and envelope; 28 cm

Note

• Text in Russian Cyrillic.
• Russian texts of novels written and first published in Russian language in Berlin : Mary, (Nabokovs first published novel), in 1926 ; and King, Queen, Knave, in 1928.
• With half-title page, but without title page and other preliminaries.
• Ardis Publishers (the name comes from the name of the country estate in Nabokov’s Ada) was founded by Carl and Ellendea Proffer in 1971. At that time, Carl was a leading Nabokov scholar and perhaps the west’s foremost authority on contemporary Soviet literature. The Nabokovs greatly admired his Keys to Lolita, which remains, in my view, the best exploration of the ingenious (and ingeniously misleading) system of literary allusions and their meaning in that brilliant novel. The mission at Ardis was threefold: to publish, in Russian and English, the work of suppressed contemporary Russian writers and poets who could not publish in the Soviet Union; to reissue classic works of 20th-century fiction and poetry that had been censored out of existence in the Soviet Union, and to smuggle these editions back into the USSR; and to promote, in the western world, purely literary suppressed Soviet writers, as opposed to those, like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who were famous in the west for largely political reasons. […]The Proffers often stopped off at Montreux to see the Nabokovs when coming from or going to the Soviet Union. And if not, they would always write to let the Nabokovs know they were about to travel there. Before every trip, they would get a letter with a substantial sum of money from Vladimir and Véra, asking them to give as they saw fit to 'a dissident family' in need. Carl would show us these letters by way of explaining to us that Nabokov’s public posture was a fiction. The Nabokovs made another, arguably more substantial contribution through Ardis to the walled-off Russian literary community. In the late 1970s, we reissued all of Nabokov’s Russian fiction in the original, and these editions were hugely popular in the Soviet Union. And when Ardis published Nabokov’s translation into Russian of Lolita, it was a sensation.From Remembering Ardis: a note from Fred Moody, posted by Andrea Pitzer on April 12, 2013, http://nabokovsecrethistory.com/news/ardis-publishers-and-vladimir-nabokov-fred-moody

With (note)

• Typed letter, signed, from Mary Ann Szporluk, editor at Ardis, to Vera Nabokov, Aug. 25, 1986.

Access (note)

• Restricted access ;

Call Number

Berg Coll m.b. Nabokov M37 1986

OCLC

959555862

Author

Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1899-1977.

Title

Mashen'ka and Korol', dama, valet [photocopy of proofs]

Imprint

Ann Arbor : Ardis, 1986.

With:

Typed letter, signed, from Mary Ann Szporluk, editor at Ardis, to Vera Nabokov, Aug. 25, 1986.

Access

Restricted access ; request permission in holding division.

Local Note

Berg Collection copy acquired with the Vladimir Nabokov Archive, July 1, 1991.

Connect to:

Request access to this item in the Berg Collection

Added Author

Nabokova, Vera. Addressee

Szporluk, Mary Ann.

Research Call Number

Berg Coll m.b. Nabokov M37 1986