Nabokov, Vladimir, — Speak, Memory.

NY, Vintage, (1989). G PB. First published in 1951 as Conclusive Evidence and then revised in 1966 is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov's life and. times. One of the 20th century's master prose stylists, Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. In 1940 he moved to the U.S. and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. Writing about someone or something he loves, he is irresistible, when about someone or something he despises, he can manage to enlist one's sympathies, if only momentarily, for the object of his contempt.