The Original of Laura
  • Published: 2 January 2013
  • ISBN: 9780241961483
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304

The Original of Laura

(Dying Is Fun) A Novel in Fragments

Formats & editions
Paperback
2 Jan 2013
EBook
2 Jan 2013
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The final masterwork that was nearly destroyed, from one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century

Dr Philip Wild, a man of brilliance, wit, fortune and tremendous bulk, is used to suffering humiliations at the hands of his wife, the younger, slender, and rudely promiscuous Flora. But in a novel, a 'maddening masterpiece' documenting her infidelities, written by one of her lovers and given to the doctor, she appears as My Laura. Dishonoured, Wild still finds pleasure in life, by indulging in self-annihilation, beginning with the removal of his toes.
  • Published: 2 January 2013
  • ISBN: 9780241961483
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 304
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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

Lolita
Lolita: Popular Penguins
Nabokov's Dozen
Nabokov's Dozen
Mary
Collected Poems
Revenge
See all

Praise for The Original of Laura

There are forty sentences alone that make this volume worth having.

Ian McEwan

This edition is a triumph of the book maker's art... The Original of Laura is magic right through, from the dust jacket, in sideways-fading white on black with just the merest flicks of gules, past the cloth cover that reproduces the last words of Nabokov the novelist, to the heavy gray pages divided between, on the top half, photographic reproductions of the 138 file cards, front and back, and, on the bottom half, the text in print, including misspellings, slips of the pen, blank spaces, all... the book is deeply interesting.

John Banville, Bookforum

It's like seeing an unfinished Michelangelo sculpture-one of those rough, half-formed giants straining to step out of its marble block. It's even more powerful, to a different part of the brain, than the polish of a David or a Lolita.

New York magazine

..."Laura" will beckon and beguile Nabokov fans, who will find many of the author's perennial themes and obsessions percolating.

The New York Times

...this tantalizing, fascinating, occasionally perplexing manuscript. Pity he didn't get to finish it. Fortunate we get to see it at all.

The Christian Science Monitor

What literary news could be more thrilling?

Robert McCrum, The Observer

There are enough Nabokovian touches...to tantalize any devotee of the English language.

James Marcus, The Los Angeles Times