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The Luzhin Defense

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780141185989

  • Length: 192  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 11mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 145g

  • RRP: £9.99

The Luzhin Defense

Vladimir Nabokov's early novel is the dazzling story of the coarse, strange yet oddly endearing chess-playing genius Luzhin. Discovering his prodigious gift in boyhood and rising to the rank of International Grandmaster, Luzhin develops a lyrical passion for chess that renders the real world a phantom. As he confronts the fiery, swift-swooping Italian Grandmaster Turati, he brings into play his carefully devised defence. Making masterly play of metaphor and imagery, The Luzhin Defense is the book that, of his early works, Nabokov felt 'contains and diffuses the greatest warmth'.

  • Imprint: Penguin Classics

  • ISBN: 9780141185989

  • Length: 192  Pages

  • Dimensions: 198mm x 11mm x 129mm

  • Weight: 145g

  • RRP: £9.99

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About the Author

Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), born in St Petersburg, exiled in Cambridge, Berlin, and Paris, became the greatest Russian writer of the first half of the twentieth century. Fleeing to the US with his family in 1940, he then became the greatest writer in English of the second half of the century, and even 'God's own novelist' (William Deresiewicz). He lived in Europe from 1959 onwards, and died in Montreux, Switzerland. All his major works - novels, stories, an autobiography, poems, plays, lectures, essays and reviews - are published in Penguin Modern Classics.

Vladimir Nabokov

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Recommendations

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They broke boundaries and challenged conceptions. We asked you for your must-read classics; from iconic bestsellers to lesser-known gems, these are your essential recommends.
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Extracts

Vladimir Nabokov: novelist, poet… esteemed butterfly scientist?

In this essay from his forthcoming collection, There Are Places in the World Where Rules Are Less Important Than Kindness, titled ‘Lolita and the Blue Icarus’, Carlo Rovelli writes about Nabokov’s foray into lepidoptery – and his surprising recognition as “a scientist of real worth”.

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