Publication
The novel appeared first under Nabokov's penname V. Sirin in the Russian emigre quarterly "Sovremennye Zapiski" and was thereafter published by the emigre publishing house Slovo as "Защита Лужина" (The Luzhin Defense) in Berlin. More than three decades later the novel was translated into English by Michael Scammell in collaboration with Nabokov and appeared in 1964. In the foreword to the English edition Nabokov states that he wrote The Defense in 1929 while he vacationed in Le Boulou ("hunting butterflies") and then finished it in Berlin. He links the events in the central chapters to moves as encountered in chess problems.
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