Skip to main content Skip to Search Box
Definition: Nabokov, Vladimir from Philip's Encyclopedia

US novelist, b. Russia. His family emigrated in 1919, and he settled in Germany. His debut novel was Mary (1926). The rise of fascism forced Nabokov to flee, first to France then to the USA (1940). His first novel in English was The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1938). Bend Sinister (1947) is a political novel on authoritarianism. His best-selling work, Lolita (1955), is a controversial, lyrical novel about an old man's desire for a 12-year old girl. Other works include Pnin (1957), Pale Fire (1962), and Ada (1969).

Nabokov, Vladimir

From Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Literature: The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction
Vladimir Nabokov is one of the most brilliant, original, and complex writers of the twentieth century. Though best known for his novels, he is the author of works in a variety of genres, ranging from verse to memoir, biography to translation. No writer of the last half century has had so broad or so decisive an influence on American – as well as non-American – fiction, from his student Thomas Pynchon to his early advocate John Updike, from Martin Amis to W. G. Sebald, Aleksandar Hemon to Jhumpa Lahiri, Don DeLillo to Jeffrey Eugenides, Zadie Smith to Michael Chabon. Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born into a family of great wealth and influence in St. Petersburg on April 22, 1899. He was the eldest of five children and the son of a renowned jurist and liberal politician. The family, a member of the untitled nobility, spent their summers on family estates in the Russian countryside, and the rest of the year in St. Petersburg – a rhythm recounted in his Speak, Memory (1966). Also…
313 results
Russian-born US writer. He left Russia in 1917 and began writing in English in the 1940s. His most widely known novel is Lolita (1955). His work is multi-layered and highly literary. There are aphorisms that, like airplanes, stay up only while they are in motion. 1937 The Gift , ch.1. Poor Knight! …
| 637 words
Key concepts:
Born in St Petersburg, the eldest son of cosmopolitan aristocrats. Mastering both French and English in childhood, Nabokov demonstrated precocious literary gifts, publishing two collections of verse while still in his teens. When his family fled revolutionary Russia in 1919, Nabokov entered Trinity…
| 540 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article UNIVERSITY

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
Most higher education is devoted to affirming the traditions and origins of an existing elite and transmitting them to new members. BATESON, Mary Catherine Composing a Life (1989). The competitive spirit is an ethos which it is the business of universities ... to subdue and neutralise. FRY, Stephen…
| 203 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Vladimir Nabokov 1899–1977

From The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Russian-born American novelist Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. Lolita (1955) ch. 1, opening words You can always count on a murderer for a fancy…
| 122 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article LITERATURE

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
All the arts – music and painting and the written word – are by their very nature elitist, which is why they have such power to enrich our lives. BAINBRIDGE, Beryl The Guardian , 2003. Dr Weiss, at forty, knew that her life had been ruined by literature. BROOKNER, Anita A Start in Life (1981). …
| 352 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article FICTION

From Collins Dictionary of Quotations
Science fiction is no more written for scientists than ghost stories are written for ghosts. ALDISS, Brian Penguin Science Fiction (1961). It does not matter that Dickens’ world is not lifelike: it is alive. CECIL, Lord David Early Victorian Novelists (1934). …
| 420 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article MOON LANDING

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
American astronaut That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. Men Walk on Moon New York Times, L5, column 3, 21 July 1969. No biographical data available The Moon landings were not about gathering data or testing hypotheses; they were about theatre, about the enactment of many…
| 357 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article CONTROL

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
| 52 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article MOTH

From Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations
English historian and essayist But see! a wandering Night-moth enters Allured by taper gleaming bright. What passions in her small heart whirling Hopes boundless, adoration, dread; At length her tiny pinions twirling She darts, and – puff! – the moth is dead. In Rodger L. Tarr ; …
| 542 words
Key concepts:

Full text Article Lolita

From Dictionary of Eponyms
| 65 words
Key concepts:
Mind Map

Stack overflow
More Library Resources