Ellendea Proffer. Vladimir Nabokov: A Pictorial Biography. — Ann Arbor: Ardis,1991.

Title-page: VLADIMIR | NABOKOV | A PICTORIAL BIOGRAPHY | Compiled & Edited by Ellendea Proffer | Ardis, Ann Arbor ||

Description:
Hardcover, black cloth boards with gilt lettering to spine; grey endpapers; pictorial dust jacket (photographic portrait of Nabokov on the front, butterfly on green square on the rear); 275 × 217 mm. Pages: [i–iv] v–viii [2] [1] 2–133 [1] — altogether 144 pages (72 leaves), of which only four pages contain main body text; the rest are captioned photographs. Typesetting in a serif font; captions printed in standard layout beneath images. Printed in the United States.

Contents:
The volume is divided into four chronological sections:
– Russia (pp. 1–31)
– Exile (pp. 32–83)
– America (pp. 84–101)
– Switzerland (pp. 102–134)
Includes a photographic frontispiece and an introductory essay.

Note:
The book presents more than 150 photographs, many of which are previously unpublished, drawn primarily from the Nabokov family archives in Montreux. It includes portraits, family snapshots, and images of manuscripts. A detailed chronology of Nabokov’s life (1899–1977) appears on pages vii–viii.
Designed by Ross Teasley. ISBN on rear jacket: 0-87501-078-4 ($39.95).

Subjects:
– Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1899–1977 — Portraits.
– Authors, Russian — 20th century — Pictorial works.
– Russian émigré literature — Biographical documentation.

Library classification:
PG3476.N3 Z92 1991 (LoC) | 813/.54—dc20

A NABOKOV CHRONOLOGY
(The following is not meant to be either a bibliography or an exhaustive description of Vladimir Nabokov’s life. It is meant only as a framework within which to place the photographs in this book.)

1899 April 23: Birth of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (hereafter referred to as VN) to Elena Rukavishnikov and Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov in St. Petersburg.

1908 V. D. Nabokov, a member of the First Duma, is sent to prison for three months for signing a political manifesto.

1911 VN enters the Tenishev School.

1914 VN writes his first poem.

1916 VN’s first book of poetry is published: Poems (Stikhi). (All works will be cited in English, although they were written in Russian until 1941, at which point VN switches to writing in English.)

1917 V. D. Nabokov accepts a post in the Provisional Government after the Revolution.
        VN’s father and his brother Sergei leave St. Petersburg for the Crimea, where the family was offered refuge on a friend’s estate. His mother and sisters follow soon after.

1917 November 23: V. D. Nabokov is briefly imprisoned by the Bolsheviks in Petrograd. On the 29th he leaves for the south after narrowly escaping yet another arrest. In the Crimea he becomes a member of the Crimean Regional Government.

1919 April 22: As the Red Army advances, the government leaders are ordered evacuated. The Nabokov family leaves on a ship from Sebastopol for Constantinople.

1919–22 VN attends Trinity College, Cambridge. His family is temporarily settled in England.

1920 August: The Nabokov family moves to Berlin, where V. D. Nabokov will become editor of the Russian newspaper Rul’.

1922 March 28: V. D. Nabokov is fatally shot during an assassination attempt on the politician Miliukov by right-wing monarchists.
        June: VN receives his degree from Cambridge in French and Russian.

1922–23 VN lives with his family in Berlin. He publishes two collections of poetry and his first chess problem.

1923 May 8: VN meets his future wife, Véra Slonim, at a charity costume ball in Berlin.

1923 Elena Nabokov and her daughter Elena move to Prague, where she is offered a government pension as the widow of V. D. Nabokov.

1924 VN completes his first play, The Tragedy of Mr. Morn.

1925 April 15: VN and Véra Slonim marry in Berlin.

1926 VN writes Mary, his first novel.

1927 Mary is published in Berlin.
        The Man from the USSR, his second play, is produced in Berlin.

1928 King, Queen, Knave, his second novel, is written and published.

1929 VN and Véra travel to Paris and then to the Eastern Pyrenees to hunt butterflies. VN writes The Defense which begins to come out in the Parisian journal Contemporary Annals (and continues into 1930), and publishes the collection The Return of Chorb: Stories and Poems.

1930 VN publishes The Eye in Contemporary Annals.

1931 Glory begins to come out in Contemporary Annals (and continues into 1932), as does Laughter in the Dark (which continues into 1933).

1932 Glory is published in book form in Paris.

1933 Works on The Gift. Laughter in the Dark comes out in book form in Berlin.

1934 Despair comes out in journal form. Dmitri Nabokov is born on May 10.

1935–36 Invitation to a Beheading comes out in Contemporary Annals.

1936 Publication of Despair in book form.

1937 Despair comes out in English in London. Nabokov sees his mother for the last time in Prague.

1937–38 Laughter in the Dark comes out in English in London.
        The Gift comes out in the journal Contemporary Annals, minus the fourth chapter which was censored by the editors.
        The Nabokovs move to France and spend time in Menton and other locations in the south of France, as well as in Paris.

1938 Invitation to a Beheading comes out in book form.
        A book containing The Eye and twelve short stories is published in Paris.
        In December VN begins his first novel in English, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight. This marks the moment when he decides that he will have to change languages to survive, either in England or America, since the émigré audience has shrunk and the political situation in Europe is very dangerous for a liberal Russian émigré—with a Jewish wife.

1940 May: VN, Véra and their son leave France for the United States. VN renews friendship with Professor Michael Karpovich of Harvard, who will be important for his future academic career, and meets Edmund Wilson, who will be instrumental in publishing Nabokov’s works in America.

1941 VN’s first novel composed in English, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, is published in the US.
        The family makes the first of what will become annual butterfly-hunting trips across the country. VN teaches creative writing at Stanford during the summer.
        VN receives an offer to teach at Wellesley College; at first the family lives in the college town in Massachusetts, then moves to Cambridge. VN begins to work part-time at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, an association which will continue until 1948.

1942 Beginning of VN’s long association with The New Yorker.

1944 Nikolai Gogol published.

1945 The Nabokovs become American citizens (and remain so). VN’s brother, Sergei, dies in a German concentration camp.

1947 Bend Sinister is published in English.

1948 VN moves to Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he receives the rank of professor.

1951 Conclusive Evidence is published in English.

1952 The Gift is published in book form in Russian for the first time in New York.

1954 Other Shores (a Russian version, with many changes, of the English memoir) is published.

1955 September 15: Lolita is published in English in Paris.
        December 25: Graham Greene chooses Lolita as one of the books of the year for The Sunday Times of London.

1956 Spring in Fialta, a collection of stories, is published in Russian.

1957 December 20: French government bans Lolita and 25 other books in English from Olympia Press.
        Pnin, VN’s first popular English novel, is published.

1958 August 18: The New York edition of Lolita is published.
        September 28: Lolita is in first place on The New York Times bestseller list.

1959 Publication in English of Invitation to a Beheading, Spring in Fialta, and Poems.
        VN resigns from Cornell and makes his first trip to Europe since 1940, for a reunion with family and friends.

1960 VN returns to the US and goes to California to write the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick’s film of Lolita (the screenplay will not be used).
        French and Italian publication of Lolita.

1961 The Nabokovs settle in the Montreux-Palace Hotel in Montreux, Switzerland to be near their son, who is making a career in opera in Italy, and VN’s sister. At first they assume it is a temporary move.

1962 Pale Fire is published.
        The Nabokovs return to the United States for the premiere of the movie of Lolita on June 13 in New York. VN is on the cover of Newsweek.

1963 The Gift is published in English.

1964 The Defense is published in English.
        The translation of Eugene Onegin with extensive commentaries is published in English.
        VN returns to the US to give a reading at Harvard and meet with his publishers.

1965 The Eye is published in English.

1966 Speak, Memory is published in English.

1967 VN’s Russian translation of Lolita is published in New York.

1968 King, Queen, Knave is published in English.

1969 Ada is published. VN receives cover story in Time.

1970 Mary is published in English.

1971 Glory is published in English.

1972 Publication of Transparent Things.

1973 Publication of Strong Opinions.

1974 Look at the Harlequins! is published.

1977 July 2: VN dies in Montreux, Switzerland.