Best known for his deeply controversial 1955 novel, Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) is celebrated as one of the most distinctive literary stylists of the twentieth century. In Vladimir Nabokov, Barbara Wyllie presents a comprehensive account of the life and works of the writer, from his childhood and earliest stories in pre-revolutionary Russia, to The Original of Laura a novel written almost entirely on index cards published for the first time in 2009, perhaps against Nabokov s wishes.

This literary biography investigates the author s poetry and prose, in...