Keys to the Gift

Yuri Leving’s Keys to "The Gift” systematizes in a succinct and coherent way the main available data on Nabokov’s most complex Russian novel -- The Gift (1934-1939) -- from passing notes in the private correspondence to scholarly articles, accumulated during the seventy years since its first appearance in the print. Its first part, “The Novel,” outlines the basic properties of The Gift: the plot, characters, style, and motifs, as well as reconstructs an internal chronology of the novel. The second part of the monograph, “The Text,” describes the creation of the novel and the history of its publication, public and critical reaction, challenges of the English translation, as well as its post-Soviet reception. Besides annotations to all five chapters of The Gift, the “Commentary” provides insights into problems of paleography featuring unique textological analysis of The Gift based on the author’s study of the archival copy of the manuscript.