The Stories Of Vladimir Nabokov
This collection contains all the stories from his other collections plus all the missing short stories. The stories are in chronological order.
Because most of these stories were written in the 1920s and 1930 they tend to deal with the emigres experience usually Russians living in Germany or France. Once he started writing novels in English, he stopped writing short stories. Many of the stories simply end. They are more story fragments or writing exercises. I can’t help think he was learning his craft.
Nabokov requires room to develop his characters and his plots. There are some very good stories in this collection but there is also some difficult reading. See the list below for my favorite stories.
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706,000 pages (It only seems like it)
Amazon Book Preview of The Stories Of Vladimir Nabokov
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov
1=bad, 2=poor, 3=fair, 4= good, 5=excellent
Stories with exact dates are the first published date. Otherwise they are usually when the story was written as noted in Appendix.
Originally written in Russian
| # | Title_______________________________________________ | Date___________________ |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | The Wood-Sprite | January 7, 1921 |
| 3 | Russian Spoken Here | early 1923 |
| 2 | Sounds | September 1923 |
| 3 | Wingstroke | January 1924 |
| 2 | Gods | October 1923 |
| 4 | A Matter of Chance | beginning 1924 |
| 3 | The Seaport | December 24, 1924 |
| 3 | Revenge | April 20, 1924 |
| 2 | Beneficence | April 28, 1924 |
| 3 | Details of a Sunset | July 13, 1924 |
| 3 | The Thunderstorm | August 1924 |
| 4 | La Veneziana | October 5, 1924 |
| 3 | Bachmann | November 2,4, 1924 |
| 4 | The Dragon | November 1924 |
| 3 | Christmas | January 6,8, 1925 |
| 2 | A Letter That Never Reached Russia | Spring 1925 |
| 3 | The Fight | September 26, 1925 |
| 4 | The Return of Chorb | November 12, 13, 1925 |
| 3 | A Guide to Berlin | December 24, 1925 |
| 4 | A Nursery Tale | June 27, 29, 1926 |
| 3 | Terror | 1926 |
| 4 | Razor | September 16, 1926 |
| 4 | The Passenger | March 6, 1927 |
| 3 | The Doorbell | 1927 |
| 4 | An Affair of Honor | 1927 |
| 2 | The Christmas Story | December 25, 1928 |
| 4 | The Potato Elf | December 15-19, 1929 |
| 3 | The Aurelian | 1930 |
| 3 | A Dashing Fellow | early 1930s |
| 3 | A Bad Day | July 12, 1931 |
| 3 | The Visit to the Museum | 1939 |
| 1 | A Busy Man | October 20, 1931 |
| 4 | Terra Incognita | November 22, 1931 |
| 4 | The Reunion | January 1932 |
| 2 | Lips to Lips | circa 1931 |
| 4 | Orache | January 31, 1932 |
| 4 | Music | March 27, 1932 |
| 3 | Perfection | July 3, 1932 |
| 3 | The Admiralty Spire | June 4 and 5, 1933 |
| 4 | The Leonardo | July 23 and 24, 1933 |
| 4 | In Memory of L. I. Shigaev | 1934 |
| 2 | The Circle | 1936 |
| 3 | A Russian Beauty | August 18, 1934 |
| 2 | Breaking the News | 1935 |
| 3 | Torpid Smoke | March 3, 1935 |
| 3 | Recruiting | August 18, 1935 |
| 4 | A Slice of Life | September 22, 1935 |
| 5 | Spring in Fialta | 1936 |
| 4 | Cloud, Castle, Lake | 1937 |
| 4 | Tyrants Destroyed | August 1938 |
| 4 | Lik | February 1939 |
| 5 | Vasiliy Shishkov | October/Nov of 1939 |
| 3 | Ultima Thule | late 1939 |
| 3 | Solus Rex | early 1940 |
Originally written in French
| # | Title_______________________________________________ | Date___________________ |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Mademoiselle O | 1936 |
Originally written in English
| # | Title_______________________________________________ | Date___________________ |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | The Assistant Producer | 1943 |
| 3 | That in Aleppo Once… | 1943 |
| 5 | A Forgotten Poet | May 1944 |
| 3 | Time and Ebb | April 1944 |
| 5 | Conversation Piece | 1945 |
| 3 | Signs and Symbols | 1946 |
| 5 | First Love | July 1948 |
| 4 | Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster | published March 1958 |
| 4 | The Vane Sisters | February 1951 |
| 3 | Lance | October 1951 |
| 3 | Easter Rain (Russian) | April 1925 |
Excerpts From My Kindle
This is my penultimate night. Being a woman has its points, but being an aging woman is hell, if you will pardon me the expression. Moreover, I made such mischief the other day–you will soon read about it in all the papers–that I had better get out of this life. Next Monday I plan to be born elsewhere. The Siberian slut I have chosen shall be the mother of a marvelous, monstrous man.” – location 2696-98
The fame of his likes circulates briskly but soon grows heavy and stale; and as for history it will limit his life story to the dash between two dates. – location 6990-91
a narrow rim of curved light (resembling more the corona of madness than the halo of martyrdom), – location 7306
By the way, to avoid any misapprehension, let me warn you that I do not care for your novels; they irritate me as would a harsh light or the loud conversation of strangers when one longs not to talk, but to think. Yet, at the same time, in a purely physiological way–if I may put it like that–you possess some secret of writing, the secret of certain basic colors, something exceptionally rare and important, which, alas, you apply to little purpose, within the narrow limits of your general abilities–driving about, so to speak, all over the place in a powerful racing car for which you have absolutely no use, but which keeps you thinking where could one thunder off next. However, as you possess that secret, people must reckon with you–and this is why I should like to enlist your support in a certain matter; but first take, please, a look at my poems.” – location 8278-83
When the last snow hides in the shade of the cemetery wall and the coat of my neighbor’s black horse shows a swift blue sheen in the swift April sun, and the puddles are as many heavens cupped in the Negro-hands of the Earth, then my heart goes out in its tattered cloak to visit the poor, the blind, the foolish, the round backs slaving for the round bellies, all those whose eyes dulled by care or lust do not see the holes in the snow, the blue horse, the miraculous puddle. – location 9670-73
I set myself to reread my dream–backward, diagonally, up, down–trying hard to unravel something Cynthia-like in it, something strange and suggestive that must be there. I could isolate, consciously, little. Everything seemed blurred, yellow-clouded, yielding nothing tangible. Her inept acrostics, maudlin evasions, theopathies–every recollection formed ripples of mysterious meaning. Everything seemed yellowly blurred, illusive, lost. – location 10604-7
ismtrmdbdudthtuscliissastmbt icicles by cynthia meter from me sybil
THE VANE SISTERS (page 619) Written in Ithaca, New York, in February 1951. First published in the Hudson Review, New York, Winter 1959, and in Encounter, London, March 1959. Reprinted in the collection Nabokov’s Quartet, Phaedra, New York, 1966. In this story the narrator is supposed to be unaware that his last paragraph has been used acrostically by two dead girls to assert their mysterious participation in the story. This particular trick can be tried only once in a thousand years of fiction. Whether it has come off is another question. V.N., Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories, 1975 – location 11200-11204
Cold Read 