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Literature: Field D14.4 ("a very rare book"; one copy recorded in a jacket, "with the Nabokov family")

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Notes: The first of the author's books to be published in English and extremely rare in dust-jacket: only two other examples are known, both in institutional libraries. The present copy appears to have the second issue jacket, with a replacement strip affixed to the original spine, with revised price 3/6 (instead of the original published 7/6) and two lines inserted at the centre advertising Nabokov's second book in England, Despair, published in 1937. Most of the lettering and decoration for the first state jacket is still visible in the present copy, including the imprint `John Long' at the base of the spine (see illustration). Most copiesof the book, according to the author, were destroyed in a warehouse during the Second World War. Unhappy with the translation Nabokov never allowed the edition to be reprinted. His own translation, Laughter in the Dark, appeare in America two years later. Some commentators argue that the work is a more successful and honest treatment of sexual obsession than Lolita. We are grateful to the Berg Collection, New York Public Library, for giving us the opportunity to compare the present example with theirs--Nabokov's own--which is in the earlier state jacket price 7/6 and without the advertisement for Despair.