New York. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc. 1980. First Edition. Hardcover. Book Condition: Near Fine, light tanning to pages over time. Jacket Condition: Near Fine: slight signs of shelf wear. 385pp. (ill. in b/w).

This publication is an invaluable resource, and a kind of treat, in collating a selection from the invaluable series of lectures on introductory literature form Vladimir Nabokov, an author unashamedly infatuated with the dream and testimony that coexists in literature. The lectures include Austen’s “Mansfield Park,” Dickens’ “Bleak House,” Flaubert’s “Madame Bovary,” Stevenson’s “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Proust’s “Swann’s Way,” Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” and Joyce’s “Ulysses.” For his faithful readers, these lectures are not only an opportunity to enrich understanding of these texts, but a direct route to the source: the lecture is a pleasure, uprooting the obsessions and habits of thought that underpin Nabokov’s own texts, and even trace the author’s discursive (which, since this is Nabokov, are personal) tendencies over time.

Ed. by Fredson Bowers
Intro. by John Updike
Includes facsimile reproductions of Nabokov’s original notes, graphs, and outlines.
Ft. Austen; Dickens; Flaubert; Joyce; Kafka; Proust; Stevenson; and more.