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Cover of The Enchanter by Vladimir Nabokov

The Enchanter

Vladimir Nabokov

  • 127 pages · about 2 hours
  • First published 1986
  • 19 editions
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1 About this book

Nabokov described this novella, written in Paris in 1939 but only published twenty years later, 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.

However, The Enchanter has an utterly different atmosphere, as time, place and even names remain a mystery. Nabokov transforms his protagonist's attempts to lull his twelve-year-old step-daughter into a state of 'enchantment' into a graceful, chilling fairytale.

  • Stepfathers
  • Deviant behavior

2 About Vladimir Nabokov

1899–1977

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Набо́ков ; 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1899 – 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (Владимир Сирин), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife, Véra Nabokov (née Slonim).

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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