Search Results: Authors starting with N from Raptis Rare Books

New York: Phaedra Publishers, 1966. First edition of this collection of Nabokov's short stories. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Photographic portrait of Nabokov by J.M. Schlemmer on rear panel.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1962.

London: Williams Collins Sons and Co Ltd, 1979. First printing of this edition of this collection of five of Nabokov's best known works including Lolita. Octavo, original leatherette gilt. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov's first writings were in Russian, but he achieved his greatest fame with the novels he wrote in the English language, including his masterpiece Lolita. Included in this collection are five of Nabokov's best known novels: Lolita, The Gift, Invitation to a Beheading, King Queen Knave, and Glory.

New York: Phaedra, 1965. First edition of this novel by the author of Lolita. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Translated by Dmitri Nabokov. Originally written in 1930, The Eye is Vladimir Nabokov's fourth novel. It was translated into English by the author's son Dmitri Nabokov in 1965. At just over 100 pages, The Eye is Nabokov's shortest novel. Nabokov himself referred to it as a 'little novel' and it is a work that sits somewhere around the boundary between extended short story and novella. It was produced during a hiatus in Nabokov's creation of short stories between 1927 and 1930 as a result of his growing success as a novelist. As in many of Nabokov's early works, the characters are largely Russian emigres relocated to Europe, specifically Berlin. In this case, the novel is set in two houses where a young Russian tutor, Smurov, is renting room and board.

Norfolk, CT: New Directions, 1941. First edition of Nabokov's first novel published in English, one of only 1,500 copies printed. Octavo, original burlap weave. In fine condition. A very nice example. The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is a perversely magical literary detective story -- subtle, intricate, leading to a tantalizing climax -- about the mysterious life of a famous writer. Many people knew things about Sebastian Knight as a distinguished novelist, but probably fewer than a dozen knew of the two love affairs that so profoundly influenced his career, the second one in such a disastrous way. After Knight's death, his half brother sets out to penetrate the enigma of his life, starting with a few scanty clues in the novelist's private papers. His search proves to be a story as intriguing as any of his subject's own novels, as baffling, and, in the end, as uniquely rewarding.

New York: McGraw-Hill International, Inc, 1970. First edition in English of Nabokov's debut novel. Octavo, original black cloth, mustard yellow endpapers. Fine in a fine dust jacket. A very bright example. Nabokov's debut novel, Mary, recounts the tale of Lev Glebovich Ganin, a Russian emigre and former White Guard Officer displaced by the Russian Revolution. Now living in a boarding house in Berlin, Ganin soon learns that his long-lost first love, Mary, is now the wife of one of his most unappealing neighbors and contrives a plot to reunite with her.

New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972. First edition. Octavo, original cloth. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket with light wear to the crown of the spine. Translated by Dmitri Nabokov. Glory is the wryly ironic story of Martin Edelweiss, a twenty-two-year-old Russian émigré of no account, who is in love with a girl who refuses to marry him. Convinced that his life is about to be wasted and hoping to impress his love, he embarks on a "perilous, daredevil project"--an illegal attempt to re-enter the Soviet Union, from which he and his mother had fled in 1919. He succeeds--but at a terrible cost.

New York: New Directions Books, 1944. First edition this collection of Nabokov's translations of the major Russian poets. Octavo, original boards. In near fine condition. Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov's first writings were in Russian, but he achieved his greatest fame with the novels he wrote in the English language. As a trilinqual master, Nabokov not only translated many his own early works into English, but expertly translated the works of many Russia's most important poets and novelists including Alexander Pushkin and Fyodor Tyutchev.

New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1979. First edition of this annotated compendium of the Nabokov-Wilson letters. Octaovo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Paul Bacon. In 1965 a memorable literary sensation was crafted by Edmund Wilson's severely critical review of Vladimir Nabokov's annotated translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin and by Nabokov's reply. The 264 letters in this volume represent the extant correspondence with a superb introductory essay and running commentary by Simon Karlinsky, Professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of California at Berkeley.

New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1947. First edition of Nabokov's first novel written in America. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket with some light wear to the spine. Bend Sinister was the first novel he wrote while living in America and the most overtly political novel he ever wrote. While it is filled with veiled puns and characteristically delightful wordplay, it is, first and foremost, a haunting and compelling narrative about a civilized man caught in the tyranny of a police state. It is first and foremost a compelling narrative about a civilized man and his child caught up in the tyranny of a police state. Professor Adam Krug, the country's foremost philosopher, offers the only hope of resistance to Paduk, dictator and leader of the Party of the Average Man. In a folly of bureaucratic bungling and ineptitude, the government attempts to co-opt Krug's support in order to validate the new regime.

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1962.

New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1989. Uncorrected proof of the first edition of this collection of letters by Nabokov. Octavo, original half cloth. In fine condition. Edited by Dmitri Nabokov and Matthew J. Broccoli.

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1955. First American edition and first trade edition of Nabokov's masterpiece. Octavo, original cloth. Photograph of Nabokov by Maclean Dameron. Near fine in a very good dust jacket. Housed in a custom clamshell box. One of the most celebrated books in history, Nabokov's Lolita quickly attained classic status upon publication in 1955. Notable for its controversial subject, the novel was adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne in addition to several adaptations for stage. "Lolita blazes with a perversity of a most original kind. For Mr. Nabokov has distilled from his shocking material hundred-proof intellectual farce. Lolita seems an assertion of the power of the comic spirit to wrest delight and truth from the most outlandish materials. It is one of the funniest serious novels I have ever read; and the vision of its abominable hero, who never deludes or excuses himself, brings into grotesque relief the cant, the vulgarity, and… Read More

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1955. First American edition and first trade edition of Nabokov's masterpiece. Octavo, original half cloth. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Photograph of Nabokov by Maclean Dameron. A very sharp example. One of the most celebrated books in history, Nabokov's Lolita quickly attained classic status upon publication in 1955. Notable for its controversial subject, the novel was adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne in addition to several adaptations for stage. "Lolita blazes with a perversity of a most original kind. For Mr. Nabokov has distilled from his shocking material hundred-proof intellectual farce. Lolita seems an assertion of the power of the comic spirit to wrest delight and truth from the most outlandish materials. It is one of the funniest serious novels I have ever read; and the vision of its abominable hero, who never deludes or excuses himself, brings into grotesque relief the cant, the… Read More

New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich, 1989. First edition of this collection of letters by Nabokov. Octavo, original half cloth. Near fine in a near fine dust jacket. Edited by Dmitri Nabokov and Matthew J. Broccoli.

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009. First edition of Nabokov's final and incomplete novel which he was in the process of writing at the time of his death in 1977. Octavo, original pictorial cloth. Signed by Dmitri Nabokov on the title page and additionally signed three times by the jacket designer Chip Kidd, on the title page, front panel and on the rear flap of the jacket. Illustrated throughout with photographs of the original index cards that comprised the unfinished manuscript with accompanying printed annotations. Introduction by Dmitri Nabokov. Jacket design by Chip Kidd. Although Nabokov requested that the unfinished manuscript of his final novel be destroyed upon his death, his son Dmitri finally made the decision to publish the work in 2008, just over 30 years after his father's death in 1977. The incomplete manuscript consisted of 138 handwritten index cards, a method Nabokov used often to compose many of his best-known works including Lolita and Pale Fire. Scholars and enthusiasts… Read More

London: Victor Gollanz, 1951. First edition of Nabokov's classic autobiography. Octavo, bound in full morocco by the Harcourt Bindery, gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt inner dentelles stamp-signed by the Harcourt Bindery, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. In fine condition. Speak, Memory, first published in 1951, is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov's life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including Lolita, Pnin, Despair, The Gift, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, and The Defense. Time Magazine listed the book among the 100 All-TIME non-fiction books indicating that its "impressionist approach deepens the sense of memories relived through prose that is gorgeous, rich and full". Joseph Epstein lists Nabokov's book among the few truly great autobiographies.

London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd, 1964. First edition of Nabokov's analysis of poetic prosody from the commentary of his translation of Pushkin's Eugene Onegin. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine dust jacket. Nabokov's stature as a literary critic was founded largely on his four-volume translation and commentary on Alexander Pushkin's novel, Eugene Onegin, published in 1964. The commentary concluded with an appendix titled Notes on Prosody stemming from Nabokov's observation that while Pushkin's iambic tetrameters had been a part of Russian literature for a fairly short two centuries, they were clearly understood by the Russian prosodists. On the other hand, Nabokov saw the much older English iambic tetrameters as muddled and poorly documented.

New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1973. First edition of Nabokov's first collection of public prose. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Stan Skardinski. In this collection of interviews, articles, and editorials, Nabokov ranges over his life, art, education, politics, literature, movies, and modern times, among other subjects. Strong Opinions offers his trenchant, witty, and always engaging views on everything from the Russian Revolution to the correct pronunciation of Lolita.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959. First edition of this extensive volume on translators, translating and works of translation. Octavo, original boards, near fine in a very good dust jacket. On Translation includes contributions on approaches to translating from Valdimir Nabokov, Eugene A. Nida, Renato Poggioli, Roman Jakobsen, and John Hollander.