The Wizard

This edition consists of the last two major works of Vladimir Nabokov's European period, written in Paris before his departure for America in 1940. Both had a decisive influence on all subsequent English-language works of the writer. The novella "The... Wizard" 1939 - is Nabokov's first attempt to outline the theme of "Lolita"; the novel "Solus Rex" 1940 - is a step towards the conception of "Pale Fire". Regretting the incompleteness of "Solus Rex", Nabokov noted that "for its color, for its stylistic breadth and abundance, for something indefinable in its powerful deep flow, it promised to be decisively different from all my other Russian works". An excerpt from the archival typescript of "Solus Rex", excluded from the Paris journal publication, is included in the Appendix.