Questions, Resources, and General Banter - Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited

[Jim]

Vladimir Nabokov’s autobiographical work, Speak, Memory was first published in 1951. A later revised version, which we are reading, was published in 1966 as Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited.

Details from the Wikipedia page:

It was first published in a single volume in 1951 as Speak, Memory in the United Kingdom and as Conclusive Evidence in the United States. The Russian version was published in 1954 and called Drugie berega (Other Shores). An extended edition including several photographs was published in 1966 as Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited.

There are variations between the individually published chapters, the two English versions, and the Russian version. Nabokov, having lost his belongings in 1917, wrote from memory, and explains that certain reported details needed corrections; thus the individual chapters as published in magazines and the book versions differ. Also, the memoirs were adjusted to either the English- or Russian- speaking audience. It has been proposed that the ever-shifting text of his autobiography suggests that "reality" cannot be "possessed" by the reader, the "esteemed visitor", but only by Nabokov himself.

Wikipedia page for Speak, Memory:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak,_M...


Feel free to use this thread to ask questions and post links to resources for Vladimir Nabokov and Speak, Memory.

Also, if you’ve written a review of the book, please post a link to share with the group.