Close Modal

King, Queen, Knave

Look inside
Paperback
$16.00 US
5.13"W x 8.02"H x 0.64"D   | 8 oz | 24 per carton
On sale Jul 17, 1989 | 288 Pages | 9780679723400
A love triangle, where two of the members attempt to murder the third. • King, Queen, Knave, like all Nabokov’s writing, bears the unmistakable stamp of his genius – brilliant, erotic, deliciously macabre, and wholly unique.

“Fascinating…audacious and delightful.” – The New York Times


The novel is the story of Dreyer, a wealthy and boisterous proprietor of a men's clothing emporium store.  Ruddy, self-satisfied, and thoroughly masculine, he is perfectly repugnant to his exquisite but cold middle-class wife Martha.  Attracted to his money but repelled by his oblivious passion, she longs for their nephew instead, the myopic Franz. Newly arrived in Berlin, Franz soon repays his uncle's condescension in his aunt's bed.

“A simply overflowing sense of life.” – Life Magazine
 
“A treat, a feast, the splendid work of a conscious and gifted artist.” – Book Week
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. View titles by Vladimir Nabokov

About

A love triangle, where two of the members attempt to murder the third. • King, Queen, Knave, like all Nabokov’s writing, bears the unmistakable stamp of his genius – brilliant, erotic, deliciously macabre, and wholly unique.

“Fascinating…audacious and delightful.” – The New York Times


The novel is the story of Dreyer, a wealthy and boisterous proprietor of a men's clothing emporium store.  Ruddy, self-satisfied, and thoroughly masculine, he is perfectly repugnant to his exquisite but cold middle-class wife Martha.  Attracted to his money but repelled by his oblivious passion, she longs for their nephew instead, the myopic Franz. Newly arrived in Berlin, Franz soon repays his uncle's condescension in his aunt's bed.

“A simply overflowing sense of life.” – Life Magazine
 
“A treat, a feast, the splendid work of a conscious and gifted artist.” – Book Week

Author

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. View titles by Vladimir Nabokov