From the writer who shocked and delighted the world with his novels Lolita, Pale Fire,
and Ada, or Ardor, and so many others, comes a magnificent collection of stories. Written between the 1920s and 1950s, these sixty-five tales--eleven of which have been translated into English for the first time--display all the shades of Nabokov's imagination. They range from sprightly fables to bittersweet tales of loss, from claustrophobic exercises in horror to a connoisseur's samplings of the table of human folly. Read as a whole, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov offers and intoxicating draft of the master's genius, his devious wit, and his ability to turn language into an instrument of ecstasy.

Here, for the first time, the stories of one of the century's greatest prose stylists are collected in a single, comprehensive volume. Written from the early 1920s - the years of his exile from Russia - to the mid-1950s, when he abandoned the story form and turned to his English-language masterpieces Lolita, Pale Fire, and Ada, these stories reveal the fascinating progress of Nabokov's early development as they remind us that we are in the presence of a magnificent original, a genuine master. Edited by his son and translator, Dmitri Nabokov, The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov is a literary event and a celebration of his art.

The wood-sprite — Russian spoken here — Sounds — Wingstroke — Gods — A matter of chance — The seaport — Revenge — Beneficence — Details of a sunset — The thunderstorm — La veneziana — Bachmann — The dragon — Christmas — A letter that never reached Russia — The fight — The return of Chorb — A guide to Berlin — A nursery tale — Terror — Razor — The passenger — The doorbell — An affair of honor — The Christmas story — The potato elf — The aurelian — A dashing fellow — A bad day — The visit to the museum — A busy man — Terra incognita — The reunion — Lips to lips — Orache — Music — Perfection — The admiralty spire — The Leonardo — In memory of L.I. Shigaev — The circle — A Russian beauty — Breaking the news — Torpid smoke — Recruiting — A slice of life — Spring in Fialta — Cloud, castle, lake — Tyrants destroyed — Lik — Mademoiselle O — Vasiliy Shishkov — Ultima Thule — Solus Rex — The assistant producer — That in aleppo once — A forgotten poet — Time and ebb — Conversation piece, 1945 — Signs and symbols — First love — Scenes from the life of a double monster — The Vane sisters — Lance.