The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight — the first English-language novel by Vladimir Nabokov, completed in 1939 in Paris and published two years later in the USA. Its labyrinthine structure and quasi-detective plot predetermined the uniqueness of Nabokov's subsequent prose — Lolita, Pale Fire, Ada, and especially his last completed book Look at the Harlequins!. The narrator, marked only by the initial V., reconstructs the life story of his half-brother, the late writer Sebastian Knight, using memories, oral stories, and excerpts from his books. Eluding V.'s persistent search, the true life of Knight proves to be directly connected to the mystery of his name, his works, the laws of verbal art, and Nabokov's metaphysics. This edition of the novel is accompanied by a preface, notes, and a concluding essay by the translator. The features of the translator's spelling, punctuation, and transliteration have been preserved.