Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

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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-brother, who makes himself known to the reader only as “V” (60). This first-person narrator –

1780 words

Citation: Cornwell, Neil. "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 June 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=7531, accessed 29 March 2024.]

7531 The Real Life of Sebastian Knight 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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