Novellas: The Eye; The Enchanter; The Original of Laura

In Nabokov's novellas we find some of his most potent and dazzling writing. Collected together for the first time in this elegant hardback edition, which forms part of a complete series of his works, these three pieces are remarkable works of literature. In The Eye, a fussily self-conscious Russian tutor shoots himself after a humiliating beating by his mistress' husband. There follows a satirical detective story and a wonderfully layered exploration of identity, appearance and the loss of self in a world of word-play and confusion. Nabokov described The Enchanter , written in Paris in 1939, as 'the first little throb of Lolita'. The plot is similar: a middle-aged man wedding an unattractive widow in order to indulge his paedophilic obsession with her daughter. The legendary The Original of Laura has been the source of much anxiety and contention for Nabokov's fans - and family. The late Vladimir Nabokov requested that this unfinished work be destroyed, but his son, Dmitri, eventually took the decision to publish it many years later. The novel was complete in Nabokov's mind, though he died before he could translate his vision on to paper. It is hard, however, to imagine any scholars, Nabokov enthusiasts or literature lovers being disappointed by even these fragments.