> Skip to content
  • Published: 25 May 2017
  • ISBN: 9780141186528
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 192
  • RRP: $26.00

Laughter in the Dark




Deadpan and devilishly funny, Laughter in the Dark is a tense, teasing account of lust, infatuation and self-deception

Albinus - rich, married middle-aged and respectable - is an art critic and aspiring filmmaker who lusts after the coquettish young cinema usherette Margot. Gradually he seduces her and convinces himself he is irresistible to her, but Margot has other plans. She wants to be a film star, and when Albinus introduces her to the American movie producer Axel Rex, she sees her chance - and plotting, duplicity and tragedy ensue.

  • Published: 25 May 2017
  • ISBN: 9780141186528
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 192
  • RRP: $26.00

About the author

Vladimir Nabokov

One of the twentieth century's master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977) was born in St Petersburg, but left Russia when the Bolsheviks seized power. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.

His first novel in English was The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, published in 1941. His other books include Ada or Ardor (1969), Laughter in the Dark (1933), Pale Fire (1962), the short story collection Details of a Sunset (1976) and Lolita (1955), his best-known novel.

Also by Vladimir Nabokov

See all