Letters to Vera

Nabokov’s passion for his wife spanned over half a century, from the first poem he wrote for her in 1923, after only hours in her company, to when he dedicated his last book ‘To Vera’.

GUARDIAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014

No marriage of a major twentieth-century writer lasted longer than Vladimir Nabokov’s. Vera Slonim shared his delight at the enchantment of life’s trifles and literature’s treasures, and he rated her as having the best and quickest sense of humour of any woman he had met. From their meeting in 1921, Vladimir’s letters to his beloved Vera form a narrative arc that tells a forty-six year-long love story, and they are memorable in their entirety. Almost always playful, romantic, and pithy, the letters tell us much about the man and the writer; we see that Vladimir observed everything, from animals, faces, speech, and landscapes with genuine fascination.