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Vladimir Nabokov: The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941)

By Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol)

Indexing Data:

  • Domain: Literature.
  • Genre: Novel.
  • Country: Russia, Europe.

Life, Works and Times

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The Real Life of Sebastian Knight [Sebastian Knight, or RLSK for short], Nabokov's first novel in English, was written (in Paris, in late 1938 and early 1939) while its author was still resident in Europe, although he had already begun making efforts towards moving to an English-speaking country; at that stage he principally had in mind England, which may in some part account for the “Englishness” of Sebastian Knight and his story. The novel was published in the United States at the end of 1941 (some eighteen months after the Nabokovs had arrived in that country).

Sebastian Knight purports to be an attempted biography of the recently deceased writer Sebastian Knight, written by his half-bro

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Published 30 June 2002

Citation: Cornwell, Neil. "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight". The Literary Encyclopedia. 30 June 2002.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7531, accessed 9 February 2010.]