Vladimir Nabokov, The Vane Sisters

Gerard J.M. De Vries (Independent Scholar - Europe)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1951

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Story

Resources

According to his biographer, “The Vane Sisters” ranks as “one of Nabokov’s finest” stories (Brian Boyd, Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years, p. 194), and it has received quite considerable critical attention.

“The Vane Sisters” was written in 1951, after Nabokov had finished the first version of his autobiographical Speak, Memory (entitled at that time Conclusive Evidence). Rejected by The New Yorker, it was first published only in 1959. The story, which is less than twenty pages long, has seven sections. The first of these captivates the reader by the astonishingly acute and vivid observations made by the narrator, a college professor, on a sunny winter’s afternoon about i…

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1370 words

Citation: De Vries, Gerard J.M.. "The Vane Sisters". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 August 2007 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=21898, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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