Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited (Vintage International)

Speak, Memory, first published in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised in 1966, 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 Knigh t, and The Defense . From the Trade Paperback edition From one of the 20th century's great writers comes one of the finest autobiographies of our time. • "Scintillating ... One finds here amazing glimpses into the life of a world that has vanished forever." — The New York Times Speak, Memory was first published by Vladimir Nabokov in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised and republished in 1966. Nabokov's memoir is a moving account of a loving, civilized family, of adolescent awakenings, flight from Bolshevik terror, education in England, and émigré life in Paris and Berlin. The Nabokovs were eccentric, liberal aristocrats, who lived a life immersed in politics and literature on splendid country estates until their world was swept away by the Russian revolution when the author was eighteen years old. Speak, Memory vividly evokes a vanished past in the inimitable prose of Nabokov at his best. The author recounts his Russian childhood, his family's flight to England in 1919, and emigre life in Paris and Berlin.