Table of Contents

*Frontmatter, pg. i*Contents, pg. ix*List of Illustrations, pg. xiii*Introduction, pg. 1*1. Refuge: New York and Stanford, 1940-1941, pg. 9*2. Visiting Lecturer: Wellesley and Cambridge, 1941-1942, pg. 35*3. Scientist, Writer, Teacher: Cambridge and Wellesley, 1943-1944, pg. 58*4. Permanent Impermanence: Cambridge and Wellesley, 1944-1946, pg. 77*5. Bend Sinister, pg. 93*6. Teaching Literature at Last: Cambridge and Wellesley, 1946-1948, pg. 107*7. Russian Professor: Cornell, 1948-1950, pg. 129*8. Conclusive Evidence/Speak, Memory, pg. 149*9. Teaching European Fiction: Cornell, 1950-1951, pg. 166*10. Finding Time for Lolita: Cornell and Harvard, 1951-1953, pg. 199*11. Lolita, pg. 227*12. Lolita into Print, Pnin onto Paper: Cornell, 1953-1955, pg. 255*13. Pnin, pg. 271*14. Lolita Sparks: Cornell, 1955-1957, pg. 288*15. Eugene Onegin, pg. 318*16. Lolita Explodes: Cornell and After, 1957-1959, pg. 356*17. Chased by Fame: Europe, America, Europe, 1959-1961, pg. 391*18. Pale Fire, pg. 425*19. Mask and Man: Montreux, 1961-1964, pg. 457*20. Ada Stirs: Montreux, 1964- 1966, pg. 487*21. Flying High: Montreux, 1966-1968, pg. 518*22. Ada, pg. 536*23. Tidying Up: Montreux, 1968-1972, pg. 563*24. Transparent Things, pg. 588*25. Reinventing a Life: Montreux, 1972-1974, pg. 602*26. Look at the Harlequins!, pg. 623*27. Unanswered Questions: Montreux, 1974-1977, pg. 643*Acknowledgments, pg. 665*Abbreviations, pg. 671*Notes, pg. 675*Bibliography, pg. 731*Index, pg. 759

About the Author

Brian Boyd is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of English at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is the author of the prize-winning Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years (Princeton 1990), Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years (Princeton 1991), and Nabokov's Ada: The Place of Consciousness. Referred to in a recent journal as "the great man of Nabokov studies," he has also edited Nabokov's English novels and autobiography for the Library of America and Nabokov's Butterflies for Beacon Press.

Reviews

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1992 "Nabokov has found at last a biographer worthy of him."--Walter Kendrick, The New York Times Book Review "[Boyd is] an inspired explicator... In Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years [Nabokov's] life and his art intertwine. They work against each other almost as often as they work with each other, and it takes a biographer as skilled as Brian Boyd to keep track of every fascinating twist and turn."--Anne Tyler, The Atlantic "A munificently detailed biography... [Boyd has] put all readers of Nabokov in his debt."--David Lodge, The Los Angeles Times Book Review

One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1992 "Nabokov has found at last a biographer worthy of him."--Walter Kendrick, The New York Times Book Review "[Boyd is] an inspired explicator... In Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years [Nabokov's] life and his art intertwine. They work against each other almost as often as they work with each other, and it takes a biographer as skilled as Brian Boyd to keep track of every fascinating twist and turn."--Anne Tyler, The Atlantic "A munificently detailed biography... [Boyd has] put all readers of Nabokov in his debt."--David Lodge, The Los Angeles Times Book Review

Nabokov (1899-1977) fled France with his family in 1940, just before German tanks rolled into Paris. In the U.S. he settled into a peripatetic life of permanent impermanence, and much of the first half of this volume is crammed with minutiae on his teaching, writing and lecturing. But Boyd illuminates the contours of Nabokov's mind with sensuous precision, piercing the public persona of a very private man. The Russian emigre watched in bemusement as Lolita --which brought him fame, fortune and creative freedom--underwent a ``process of vulgarization'' in the public imagination. Boyd, senior lecturer at the University of Auckland, offers fresh readings of Pale Fire , Speak Memory , Pnin , Ada , Lolita and the rest of Nabokov's oeuvre. He conveys a keen sense of Nabokov as an artist who embraced life as an inexhaustible surprise and who suspected death to be a release from the self's prison. Ultimately a triumphant and definitive biography, this volume completes the story begun with The Russian Years. Photos. First serial to New York Times Book Review; author tour. (Sept.)