Vladimir Nabokov, who died in 1977, came late to his American reputation. But long before the publication of Lolita brought him fame—in 1958, eighteen years after his arrival in this country—he had achieved local renown at Wellesley and at Cornell, where during the 1940s and 1950s he lectured on Russian and European literature. This essay on Chekhov, which has never previously been published, is drawn from Nabokov’s lecture notes for his masterly course on the poets and novelists of his native country.
“Pilgram decided that the dream of his life was about to break at last from its old crinkly cocoon.”
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