Vladimir Nabokov (Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition)

Biography

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov's life divides neatly into four phases, each lasting approximately twenty years. The oldest of five siblings, he was born April 10 (Old Style), 1899, to an aristocratic and wealthy family in St. Petersburg. Nabokov later insisted on the New Style birth date of April 23, because it coincided with William Shakespeare's.

Nabokov's grandfather, Dmitri Nikolayevich, had been state minister of justice for two czars. His father, Vladimir Dmitrievich, a prominent liberal statesman, was married to Elena Rukavishnikova, a beautiful woman...

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