The King, the Queen, the Jack

In his second novel, «The King, the Queen, the Jack», written in Berlin in 1928, Vladimir Nabokov addresses material from German life and for the first time embarks on a deep exploration of bourgeois psychology, which continues in «The Eye» and «Despair».

Behind the criminal plot with a love triangle lies a masterfully revealed confrontation between two polar ways of life: the stereotypical, soulless, automatized, and the natural, full-blooded, creative. In a conditional world of advertisements and fashion magazines, the very consciousness and nature of the young «lady», the main character of the book, seem to be objectified, and conversely, the everyday life and projects of her husband, the wealthy businessman Dreyer, the «king» in that complex game which Nabokov plays with the reader, are unexpectedly filled with poetry.

This edition is supplemented by an episode from the expanded English version of the novel, translated into Russian for the first time.