Vladimir Nabokov - The Tragedy of Mister Morn

VLADIMIR NABOKOV studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, writing prolifically in Russian under the pseudonym Sirin. In 1940, he left France for America, where he wrote some of his greatest works— Bend Sinister (1947), Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), and Pale Fire (1962)—and translated his earlier Russian novels into English. He taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Cornell. He died in Montreux, Switzerland, in 1977.

THOMAS KARSHAN is the author of Vladimir Nabokov and the Art of Play and editor of Nabokov’s Selected Poems . Previously a research fellow at Christ Church, Oxford, and Queen Mary, University of London, he is now a lecturer in literature at the University of East Anglia.

ANASTASIA TOLSTOY is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oxford, where she is writing a thesis on Nabokov. She is the great-great-great-granddaughter of Leo Tolstoy.

Ada, or Ardor • 978-0-307-78801-6

The Annotated Lolita • 978-0-307-78808-5

Bend Sinister • 978-0-307-78788-0

Despair • 978 -0-307-78766-8

The Enchanter • 978-0-307-78730-9

The Eye • 978-0-307-78756-9

The Gift • 978-0-307-78777-4

Glory • 978-0-307-78757-6

Invitation to a Beheading • 978-0-307-78735-4

King, Queen, Knave • 978-0-307-78764-4

Laughter in the Dark • 978-0-307-78767-5

Lolita • 978-0-307-74402-9

Lolita: A Screenplay • 978-0-307-78760-6

Look at the Harlequins! • 978-0-307-78778-1

The Luzhin Defense • 978-0-307-78755-2

Mary • 978-0-307-78729-3

The Original of Laura • 978-0-307-27325-3

Pale Fire • 978-0-307-78765-1

Pnin • 978-0-307-78747-7

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight • 978-0-307-78758-3

Selected Poems • 978-0-307-95755-9

Speak, Memory • 978-0-307-78773-6

The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov • 978-0-307-78809-2

Strong Opinions • 978-0-307-78807-8

Transparent Things • 978-0-307-78732-3

Vintage Nabokov • 978-0-307-78724-8

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For more information, please visit www.aaknopf.com

Mary

King, Queen, Knave

The Defense

The Eye

Glory

Laughter in the Dark

Despair

Invitation to a Beheading

The Gift

The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

Bend Sinister

Lolita

Pnin

Pale Fire

Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle

Transparent Things

Look at the Harlequins

Nabokov’s Dozen

A Russian Beauty and Other Stories

Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories

Details of a Sunset and Other Stories

The Enchanter

The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov

The Waltz Invention

Lolita: A Screenplay

The Man from the USSR and Other Plays

Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited

Strong Opinions

Nikolai Gogol

Lectures on Literature

Lectures on Russian Literature

Lectures on Don Quixote

Three Russian Poets: Translations of Pushkin ,

Lermontov, and Tyutchev

A Hero of Our Time (Mikhail Lermontov)

The Song of Igor’s Campaign (Anon.)

Eugene Onegin (Alexander Pushkin)

Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya

The Nabokov-Wilson Letters, 1940–1971

Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters, 1940–1977

Selected Poems

Introduction copyright © 2012 by Thomas Karshan

Translation copyright © 2012 by Thomas Karshan and Anastasia Tolstoy

Illustrations by Pablo Delcán

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Russia as Tragediya Gospodina Morna by Azbuka, St. Petersburg, in 2008. Copyright © 2008 by The Estate of Vladimir Nabokov. This translation originally published in the United Kingdom by Penguin Classics, an imprint of Penguin Books Ltd., London, in 2012.

www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally serialized in Russian, in somewhat different form, in Zvezda (1997).

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, 1899–1977.

[Tragediia gospodina Morna. English]

The tragedy of Mister Morn / by Vladimir Nabokov;

with an introduction by Thomas Karshan; translation by Anastasia Tolstoy and Thomas Karshan.

p. cm.

“This is a Borzoi book.”

eISBN: 978-0-307-96080-1

I. Tolstoy, Anastasia. II. Karshan, Thomas. III. Title. IV Title: Tragedy of Mister Morn.

PG3476.N3T8313 2013

891.72′42—dc23 2012037121

Jacket design by Pablo Delcán

v3.1

Lines missing in the original Russian text, including “curtain” to mark the end of the scene.

Lines missing in the original Russian text.

“KING” changes back to “MORN” in the Russian (Azbuka) edition of the play.