Nine Stories (Nabokov)

Nine Stories is an English-language collection of stories written in Russian, French, and English by Vladimir Nabokov. It was published in 1947 by New Directions in New York City, as the second issue of a serial, Direction.

The nine stories are:

  • "The Aurelian" (a translation by Nabokov and Peter Pertzov of "Pil'gram")
  • "Cloud, Castle, Lake" (a translation by Nabokov and Peter Pertzov of "Oblako, ozero, bashnia")
  • "Spring in Fialta" (a translation by Nabokov and Peter Pertzov of "Vesna v Fialta")
  • "Mademoiselle O" (a translation by VN with Hilda Ward from the French)
  • "A Forgotten Poet"
  • "The Assistant Producer"
  • "That in Aleppo Once..."
  • "Time and Ebb"
  • "Double Talk" (which would later be retitled "Conversation Piece")

No further edition of the book was ever published; all nine stories subsequently reappeared in Nabokov's Dozen, and much later within The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov.

Works by Vladimir Nabokov
Novels
Russian
  • Mary
  • King, Queen, Knave
  • The Defense
  • The Eye
  • Glory
  • Laughter in the Dark
  • Despair
  • Invitation to a Beheading
  • The Gift
  • The Enchanter
English
  • The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
  • Bend Sinister
  • Lolita
  • Pnin
  • Pale Fire
  • Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle
  • Transparent Things
  • Look at the Harlequins!
  • The Original of Laura (unfinished fragment)
Short
stories
Russian
  • "The Wood-Sprite"
  • "Russian Spoken Here"
  • "Sounds"
  • "Wingstroke"
  • "Gods"
  • "A Matter of Chance"
  • "The Seaport"
  • "Revenge"
  • "Beneficence"
  • "Details of a Sunset"
  • "The Thunderstorm"
  • "La Veneziana"
  • "Bachmann"
  • "The Dragon"
  • "Christmas"
  • "A Letter That Never Reached Russia"
  • "The Fight"
  • "The Return of Chorb"
  • "A Guide to Berlin"
  • "A Nursery Tale"
  • "Terror"
  • "Razor"
  • "The Passenger"
  • "The Doorbell"
  • "An Affair of Honor"
  • "The Christmas Story"
  • "The Potato Elf"
  • "The Aurelian"
  • "A Dashing Fellow"
  • "A Bad Day"
  • "The Visit to the Museum"
  • "A Busy Man"
  • "Terra Incognita"
  • "The Reunion"
  • "Lips to Lips"
  • "Orache"
  • "Music"
  • "Perfection"
  • "The Admiralty Spire"
  • "The Leonardo"
  • "In Memory of L. I. Shigaev"
  • "The Circle"
  • "A Russian Beauty"
  • "Breaking the News"
  • "Torpid Smoke"
  • "Recruiting"
  • "A Slice of Life"
  • "Spring in Fialta"
  • "Cloud, Castle, Lake"
  • "Tyrants Destroyed"
  • "Lik"
  • "Vasiliy Shishkov"
  • "Ultima Thule"
  • "Solus Rex"
  • "The Word"
  • "Natasha"
French
  • "Mademoiselle O"
English
  • "The Assistant Producer"
  • "That in Aleppo Once..."
  • "A Forgotten Poet"
  • "Time and Ebb"
  • "Conversation Piece, 1945"
  • "Signs and Symbols"
  • "First Love"
  • "Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster"
  • "The Vane Sisters"
  • "Lance"
  • "Easter Rain"
Plays
Russian
  • Death
  • The Grandfather
  • The North Pole
  • The Tragedy of Mister Morn
  • The Man from the USSR
  • The Event
  • The Waltz Invention
Non-fiction
Memoirs
and letters
  • Speak, Memory
  • The Nabokov-Wilson letters
  • Selected Letters, 1940-1977
Criticism
  • Strong Opinions
  • Nikolai Gogol
  • Lectures on Literature
  • Lectures on Russian Literature
  • Lectures on Don Quixote
  • Notes on Prosody
Miscellanea
  • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Russian translation)
  • Poems and Problems
  • Lolita: A Screenplay
  • The Annotated Lolita
  • Carrousel
  • A Hero of Our Time (English translation)
  • Eugene Onegin (English translation)
  • Father's Butterflies

Famous quotes containing the word stories:

    “Every one of my friends had a bad day somewhere in her history she wished she could forget but couldn’t. A very bad mother day changes you forever. Those were the hardest stories to tell. . . . “I could still see the red imprint of his little bum when I changed his diaper that night. I stared at my hand, as if they were alien parts of myself . . . as if they had betrayed me. From that day on, I never hit him again.””
    —Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)