The Original of Laura (Dying is Fun): A Novel in Fragments.

NABOKOV, Vladimir; Introduction by Dmitri Nabokov.

$750.00

Item Number: 140672

New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009.

First edition of Nabokov’s final and incomplete novel which he was in the process of writing at the time of his death in 1977. Octavo, original pictorial cloth. Signed by Dmitri Nabokov on the title page and additionally signed three times by the jacket designer Chip Kidd, on the title page, front panel and on the rear flap of the jacket. Illustrated throughout with photographs of the original index cards that comprised the unfinished manuscript with accompanying printed annotations. Introduction by Dmitri Nabokov. Jacket design by Chip Kidd.

Although Nabokov requested that the unfinished manuscript of his final novel be destroyed upon his death, his son Dmitri finally made the decision to publish the work in 2008, just over 30 years after his father's death in 1977. The incomplete manuscript consisted of 138 handwritten index cards, a method Nabokov used often to compose many of his best-known works including Lolita and Pale Fire. Scholars and enthusiasts disagreed over whether or not the manuscript should be published because of Nabokov's reputation for perfectionism in his work.