First UK edition. 8vo. Pp. xxi, 278, [2]. Publisher's cream cloth, titled in black to spine and upper board; white pastedowns fading to black overlay on endpapers. Frontis. With 138 colour reproductions of the original index cards on which the novel was written, with numerous authorial corrections, deletions and emendations throughout. Jacket design by Chip Kidd. Edited and with an Introduction by Dmitri Nabokov. The author's unfinished final work in the form of a fragmented rough draft in facsimile reproductions of the hand-written index cards as well as typeset text of their contents. The former are perforated and can be removed and rearranged at will.
As new, still in publisher's shrink-wrap.
Dr Philip Wild, a man of brilliance, wit, fortune and tremendous bulk, is used to suffering humiliations at the hands of his younger, slender, and rudely promiscuous wife, Flora. But in a 'maddening masterpiece' of a novel documenting her infidelities, written and given to the doctor by one of her lovers, she appears as My Laura. Although Nabokov requested that the unfinished manuscript be destroyed upon his death, and after Véra failed to carry out her husband's wishes, his son and heir, Dmitri finally made the decision to publish the work in 2008. The debate as to whether it should have been published at all rages still amongst scholars and critics.
As for the index cards themselves, after being "bought in" when the bidding reached $280,000 at Christie's December 2009 sale in New York (with a reserve price of $400,000 to $600,000), they realised just £78,050 at Christie's November 2010 London sale (on a £100,000 to 150,000 guide price). "A beautifully printed objet d'art in its own right, the book of previously unpublished writings offers a thrilling insight into the great writer's creative process, 28 years after his death." –The Kansas City Star