KING, QUEEN, KNAVE. Signed [Signed 1st Edition ]

Edition: 1st Edition

Book Description

New York: McGraw-Hill Co., 1968 Translated from the Russian by Dmitri Nabokov in collaboration with the author. First Edition & First Edition in English. 8vo., 273pp. Neatly SIGNED by Vladimir Nabokov in blue ink on the title page. The gilt-lettered black cloth binding blind embossed at the spine in near fine condition, "First Edition" printing statement & 45715 on the copyright page. Orange endpapers, top edge stained orangy-red. The priced clipped first edition Al Cetta designed dustwrapper with Halsman's great portrait of the author on the rear panel in fine condition [tiny closed tear]. Front edge untrimmed, bottom edge trimmed. Signed books by Nabokov are decidedly uncommon. Very Nice Indeed. Juliar A9.2 State b. "..first published in Russian in 1928 as Korol, Dama, Valet. With this novel, Nabokov began his career-long obsession with gamesmanship, word play in several languages, & multiple, surreal images & characterizations. The image of a deck of playing cards is used throughout the novel. Franz, an unsophisticated young man, works in the department store of his rich uncle Dreyer. Out of boredom Martha, the uncle's young wife, seduces Franz. The lovers subsequently plot to drown Dreyer & marry each other. Martha changes her mind abruptly when she l earns that an invention by Dreyer stands to increase his wealth, but she then dies suddenly from pneumonia. Her husband never discovers his wife's duplicity." - The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature. Signed by Author. 1st Edition.