The Original of Laura

“Nabokov’s last metafictive parable. . . . One of the most interesting short stories Nabokov never wrote.” —San Francisco Chronicle

When Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977, he left instructions for his heirs to burn the 138 hand-written index cards that made up the rough draft of his final and unfinished novel, The Original of Laura. But Nabokov’s wife, Vera, could not bear to destroy her husband’s last work, and when she died, the fate of the manuscript fell to her son. Dmitri Nabokov’s decision finally to allow publication of the fragmented narrative—dark yet playful, preoccupied with mortality—affords us one last experience of Nabokov’s magnificent creativity, the quintessence of his unparalleled body of work.

“Bits and pieces of Laura will beckon and beguile Nabokov fans, who will find many of the author’s perennial themes and obsessions percolating through the story of Philip…. In these pages readers will find bright flashes of Nabokovian wordplay and surreal, Magritte-like descriptions.” —The New York Times

“A unique chance to see the master out of control. . . . 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