Nabokov, Vladimir. Pnin.. Doubleday & Company, Garden City, NY, 1957.

Price: US$1250.00 + shipping

Description: First American edition of this ‘campus novel’, a subgenre which was beginning to manifest itself in the early Fifties. Octavo, bound in full morocco by the Harcourt Bindery, gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt inner dentelles stamp-signed by the Harcourt Bindery, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. In fine condition. An exceptional presentation. Pnin is a professor of Russian at an American college who takes the wrong train to deliver a lecture in a language he cannot master. Pnin is a tireless lover who writes to his treacherous Liza: "A genius needs to keep so much in store, and thus cannot offer you the whole of himself as I do." Pnin is the focal point of subtle academic conspiracies he cannot begin to comprehend, yet he stages a faculty party to end all faculty parties forever. "Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically" (John Updike).

Seller: Raptis Rare Books, Palm Beach, FL, U.S.A.

Nabokov, Vladimir. Pnin. Doubleday, USA, 1957.

Price: US$20580.44 + shipping

Condition: Near Fine

Description: A SIGNED US first edition, craft bound by Richard Tong at Lyra's Bindery in Shropshire. Bound in white goatskin with a square spine. The title has been onlaid in multicoloured leathers to the front board. Black stamped title to spine. Butterfly design on the back board. TEG. Housed in a leather solander box. A good looking copy with lightly toned page edges and a neat, contemporary gift inscription on the page preceding the half title. SIGNED by Nabokov : Vladimir Nabokov Oct 30 1959 London. Paypal accepted.

Seller: Cheltenham Rare Books, Cheltenham, United Kingdom