Book Series Guide

Vladimir Nabokov

Author guide

Vladimir Nabokov Books in Order

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899–1977) was a Russian-American writer who published Russian fiction and poetry under the pen name Vladimir Sirin before becoming one of the major English-language novelists of the twentieth century. His work spans novels, short fiction, poetry, drama, memoir, literary criticism, translation, correspondence, and scientific writing on butterflies.

novelnovellashort fictionpoetrymemoirliterary criticismdramascreenplaycorrespondencelepidopterology

Catalog record updated .

Not sure where to begin?

Start with one of these

Cover of Lolita

Lolita

The most accessible entry point to Nabokov’s mature English-language fiction.

Cover of Speak, Memory

Speak, Memory

A central memoir that introduces his style, multilingual background, and recurring themes.

Cover of Pale Fire

Pale Fire

A compact, formally inventive introduction to his experimental fiction.

Outside the series

Bibliography by category

Novels (20)
  1. Mary

    novel · 1926

    Nabokov's first novel is now available in a trade paper edition. Here is the dark tale of a handsome officer who lives next door to his lover's husband in a dreary Berlin boarding house.

  2. King, Queen, Knave

    novel · 1928

    The novel is the story of Dreyer, a wealthy and boisterous proprietor of a men's clothing emporium store. Ruddy, self-satisfied, and thoroughly masculine, he is perfectly repugnant to his exquisite but cold middle-class wife Martha.…

  3. The Luzhin Defense

    novel · 1930

    Vladimir Nabokov's early novel is the dazzling story of the coarse, strange yet oddly endearing chess-playing genius Luzhin. Discovering his prodigious gift in boyhood and rising to the rank of International Grandmaster, Luzhin develops a…

  4. The Eye

    novella · 1930

    Nabokov's fourth novel, The Eye is as much a farcical detective story as it is a profoundly refractive tale about the vicissitudes of identities and appearances. Nabokov's protagonist, Smurov, is a lovelorn, excruciatingly self-conscious…

  5. Glory

    novel · 1932

  6. Laughter in the Dark

    novel · 1933

    "Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus. He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster." Thus…

  7. Despair

    novel · 1936

    Self-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his own personality, Hermann Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. But then a chance meeting with a man he believes to be his double reveals a frightening 'split' in…

  8. Invitation to a Beheading

    novel · 1938

    Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude," an imaginary…

  9. The Gift

    novel · 1938

  10. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

    novel · 1941

    En apariencia se trata de la simple biografía de un escritor, Sebastian Knight, escrita por su hermanastro «V» con la intención de corregir las falsedades vertidas sobre su persona en otra biografía, escrita con tendenciosidad y graves…

  11. Bend Sinister

    novel · 1947

    <p><b>Book Source:</b> <a href="http://www.new.dli.ernet.in/handle/2015/65702" rel="nofollow">Digital Library of India Item 2015.65702</a></p><p>dc.contributor.author: Nabokov Vladimir<br />dc.date.accessioned: 2015-06-29T23:30:58Z<br…

  12. Lolita

    novel · 1955

    The most famous and controversial novel from one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century tells the story of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. “The conjunction of a sense of…

  13. Pnin

    novel · 1957

    Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian émigré precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunder-standings, all the while…

  14. Pale Fire

    novel · 1962

    "An ingeniously constructed parody of detective fiction and learned commentary, 'Pale Fire' offers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures, at the center of which is a 999-line poem written by the literary genius John Shade just before his…

  15. Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

    novel · 1969

    Two young children engage in an inocent tryst only to later discover a wonderful and terrible secret about themselves. "The arbors and ardors of Ardis."

  16. Transparent Things

    novel · 1972

    "Transparent Things revolves around the four visits of the hero--sullen, gawky Hugh Person--to Switzerland . . . As a young publisher, Hugh is sent to interview R., falls in love with Armande on the way, wrests her, after multiple…

  17. Look at the Harlequins!

    novel · 1974

    'Look at the harlequins . . . Play! Invent the world! Invent reality.' This is the childhood advice given by an aunt to Russian born writer Vadim Vadimovich, who emigrates to England, then Paris, then Germany and then the US, and, now…

  18. The Enchanter

    novella · 1986

  19. Nabokov’s Butterflies: Unpublished and Uncollected Writings

    nonfiction · 2000

  20. The Original of Laura

    novel · 2009

    Avec la reproduction des fiches manuscrites originales de l'auteur établi à Montreux dès 1961.

Nonfiction (7)
  1. Nikolai Gogol

    literary-criticism · 1944

  2. Speak, Memory

    memoir · 1951

    From one of the 20th century’s great writers comes one of the finest autobiographies of our time. Speak, Memory was first published by Vladimir Nabokov in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised and republished in 1966.…

  3. Notes on Prosody

    literary-criticism · 1963

  4. Lectures on Literature

    literary-criticism · 1980

    Reading versions of important lectures given in the 1950s demonstrate Nabokov's critical talents and reveal his judgments on the works and achievement of Austen, Dickens, Flaubert, Joyce, Kafka, Proust, and Stevenson

  5. Lectures on Ulysses

    literary-criticism · 1980

  6. Lectures on Russian Literature

    literary-criticism · 1981

  7. Lectures on Don Quixote

    literary-criticism · 1983

Short fiction (12)
  1. The Return of Chorb

    short-story-collection · 1930

  2. Nine Stories

    short-story-collection · 1947

  3. Spring in Fialta

    short-story-collection · 1956

  4. Nabokov’s Dozen

    short-story-collection · 1958

    Introducing Little Clothbound Classics: irresistible, mini editions of short stories, novellas and essays from the world's greatest writers, designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith Celebrating the range and diversity of…

  5. Nabokov’s Quartet

    short-story-collection · 1966

  6. Nabokov’s Congeries

    short-story-collection · 1968

  7. The Circle

    short-story-collection · 1992

  8. The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

    short-story-collection · 1995

  9. Carrousel

    short-fiction-collection · 2012

Essays and speeches (2)
  1. Strong Opinions

    essay-collection · 1973

  2. Think, Write, Speak

    essay-collection · 2019

Poetry (8)
  1. Stikhi

    poetry-collection · 1916

  2. Almanakh: Dva puti

    poetry-collection · 1918

  3. Grozd

    poetry-collection · 1923

  4. Gorny put

    poetry-collection · 1923

  5. Poems

    poetry-collection · 1952

  6. Poems: 1929–1951

    poetry-collection · 1952

  7. Poems and Problems

    poetry-collection · 1970

  8. Stikhi (Poems)

    poetry-collection · 1979

Plays (5)
  1. The Waltz Invention

    play · 1938

  2. Lolita: A Screenplay

    screenplay · 1974

    The screenplay for Kubrik's 1962 film tells the story of an older man's obsession with a young girl.

  3. The Man from the USSR and Other Plays

    play-collection · 1985

  4. Plays

    play-collection · 1990

  5. The Tragedy of Mister Morn

    play · 1997

Other (3)
  1. The Nabokov–Wilson Letters

    correspondence · 1979

  2. Correspondence with His Sister

    correspondence · 1984

  3. Letters to Véra

    correspondence · 2014

    "A collection of letters between Vladimir Nabokov and his wife, Vera"-- "The letters of the great writer to his wife--gathered here for the first time--chronicle a decades-long love story and document anew the creative energies of an…

Frequently asked questions about Vladimir Nabokov

Who was Vladimir Nabokov?

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) was a Russian émigré writer who became one of the twentieth century’s major English-language authors. He also worked in poetry, translation, criticism, memoir, and the scientific study of butterflies.

Source: poetry.harvard.edu (opens in a new tab)

Was Vladimir Nabokov Russian or American?

Both descriptions are accurate: he was born in Russia, became a naturalized American citizen in 1945, and wrote in Russian, English, and French.

Sources: time.com (opens in a new tab)poetry.harvard.edu (opens in a new tab)

What did Vladimir Nabokov do besides write fiction?

Nabokov was a distinguished lepidopterist, or butterfly specialist, and taught Russian literature at Cornell University from 1948 to 1959. His scientific work included research on blue butterflies and conservation-related work involving the Karner blue.

Sources: news.cornell.edu (opens in a new tab)news.cornell.edu (opens in a new tab)

What influenced Vladimir Nabokov’s writing?

His exile after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution and his movement from Russian culture through Western Europe to America strongly shaped his literary outlook. Scholars also describe his work as a reinterpretation of Russian fictional traditions.

Source: academic.oup.com (opens in a new tab)

What major literary recognition did Vladimir Nabokov receive?

The National Book Foundation records Nabokov as a fiction finalist seven times, in 1958, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1973, 1975, and 1976. The Nobel Prize nomination archive also records him as a nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Sources: nationalbook.org (opens in a new tab)nobelprize.org (opens in a new tab)