Elementary Secondary Higher Ed Common Reads

Higher Education


Catalogs
News
Desk/Exam
(0)
Wish List (0)
Wish List
Download high-resolution image Look inside

Invitation to a Beheading

Part of Vintage International

Author Vladimir Nabokov
Look inside
Paperback
$17.00 US
Knopf | Vintage
On sale Sep 19, 1989 | 240 Pages | 978-0-679-72531-2
Add to cart Add to list Exam Copies
See Additional Formats
Invitation to a Beheading embodies the vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude," an imaginary crime that defines definition. Cincinnatus spends his final days in a jail where he is visited by chimerical jailers, an executioner, and by his in-laws. When Cincinnatus is led out to be executed, he simply wills his executioners out of existence; they disappear, along with the whole world they inhabit.
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

Invitation to a Beheading embodies the vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude," an imaginary crime that defines definition. Cincinnatus spends his final days in a jail where he is visited by chimerical jailers, an executioner, and by his in-laws. When Cincinnatus is led out to be executed, he simply wills his executioners out of existence; they disappear, along with the whole world they inhabit.

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

Additional formats

Other books in this series

Other Books by this Author

Related Articles
Subscribe

About Higher Education

Penguin Random House Education

Penguin Random House

About Higher Education

Penguin Random House Education

Penguin Random House

Back to Top
0
    • 0
    Higher Education
    Wish List (0)