Letters to Vera

Vladimir and Vera Nabokov lived together for over fifty years – in the literary world, this is an amazing example of a happy marriage. They rarely parted for long, and yet their archive contains more than three hundred letters and notes from Nabokov, from 1923 to 1975. One of the best writers of the 20th century, brilliant, ironic, and demanding, Nabokov appears in this book as a tender and caring husband. «…We are something quite special; the wonders we know, no one else knows, and no one loves quite like we do,» he wrote in 1924. Vera Evseevna was his first reader, his typewriter and secretary, and after the writer's death, she translated his English works and safeguarded his vast legacy. The letters collected in this edition paint a detailed portrait of the young Nabokov: his closest circle and acquaintances, literary ideas and reading circle, his leisure, everyday habits, memories of Russia and Cambridge, plans for the future, etc. In the letters from later years, his love and admiration for his wife remain unchanged, as she shared both the difficult trials and worldwide fame with him.