Unreferenced date December 2009 File NabokovsCongeries.jpg thumb right 1st edition publ. Viking Press Nabokov s Congeries was a collection of work by Vladimir Nabokov published in 1968 and reprinted in 1971 as The Portable Nabokov . Because Nabokov supervised its production less than a decade before he died, it is useful in attempting to identify which works Nabokov considered to be his best, especially among his short stories. Contents Editor s Introduction by Page Stegner A Bibliographical Note Vladimir Nabokov A Chronology The Artist Himself From Speak, Memory An Autobiography Revisited Eleven Stories Terra Incognita short story Cloud, Castle, Lake , , The Visit to the Museum Spring in Fialta That in Aleppo Once... The Assistant Producer Signs and Symbols First Love Lance short story Lance The Vane Sisters Scenes from the Life of a Double Monster Essays and Criticism On a Book Entitled Lolita Introduction to Bend Sinister novel Bend Sinister Foreword to Mihail Lermontov s A Hero of Our Time From Nikolai Gogol The Government Specter From the Commentary to Eugene Onegin On Romanticism The Art of the Duel From Eugene Onegin A Sample Translation from Chapter One, Stanzas I VIII Reply to My Critics A Novel and Three Excerpts Pnin complete From Despair novel Despair From Invitation to a Beheading From The Gift Nabokov book The Gift Poems The Refrigerator Awakes A Literary Dinner A Discovery An Evening of Russian Poetry Restoration Lines Written in Oregon Ode to a Model On Translating Eugene Onegin Rain The Ballad of Longwood Glen A Textual Note The text of The Assistant Producer contained in Nabokov s Congeries omits the story s final two paragraphs, which had apparently been inadvertently dropped from all English language editions of the story subsequent to the first. This was explained by the author s son in his introduction to the posthumously published collection The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov 1995 , in which the st ... more details
Bed mould , in architecture , the congeries of moulding s which is under the projecting part of almost every cornice , of which, indeed, it is a part. References 1911 Category Architectural elements Architecture stub ... more details
Summary Non free use rationale Article Nabokov s Congeries Description 1st edition Source http pictures.abebooks.com BOOKFEATHERSLLC 4372038030.jpg Portion front cover Low resolution yes Purpose to illustrate an article concerning the book in question Replaceability no other information Licensing Non free book cover ... more details
File NabokovsQuartet.jpg thumb right 1st edition Nabokov s Quartet is a collection of four of Vladimir Nabokov s short stories . The collection was first published by Phaedra publisher Phaedra , New York in 1966. It contains the following short stories An Affair of Honor story An Affair of Honor Lik story Lik The Vane Sisters The Visit to the Museum The latter two were reprinted in 1968 in Nabokov s Congeries , and Lik and The Vane Sisters are included in Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories 1975 . All four stories were published again posthumously within The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov . Nabokov Prose Category Short story collections by Vladimir Nabokov Category 1966 short story collections ... more details
Nabokov may refer to Vladimir Nabokov Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov 1899 1977 , Russian American author, entomologist, and chess problem composer Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov 1870 1922 , Russian criminologist, journalist, and liberal politician, and father of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov Nicolas Nabokov 1903 1978 , Russian American composer, cousin of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov Dmitri Nabokov , singer and author, son of Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov Evgeni Nabokov , a professional ice hockey goaltender, currently with the New York Islanders . See also Nabokov s Dozen 1958 , a collection of 13 short stories by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov previously published in American magazines Nabokov s Congeries , a collection of work by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov published in 1968 and reprinted in 1971 as The Portable Nabokov 7232 Nabokov , an asteroid discovered on October 20, 1985 surname de Nabokow fr Nabokov homonymie it Nabokov lv Nabokovs nl Nabokov ja pl Nabokow ru sk Nabokov fi Nabokov ... more details
BLP sources date May 2011 Howard E. McCurdy is professor of public affairs in the public administration and policy department at American University McCurdy is considered an expert on space policy and NASA . In 1998, he was selected to be the Charles A. Lindbergh Chair in Aerospace History , a one year fellowship at the National Air and Space Museum . ref cite web url http www1.spa.american.edu cvs Howard McCurdy 18.pdf title Howard E. McCurdy publisher American University work CV accessdate May 26, 2011 ref McCurdy received his bachelor s and master s degrees from the University of Washington and his Ph.D. from Cornell University. Reviewing McCurdy s history of the U.S. space program, Elizabeth Hand wrote that In Space and the American Imagination , Howard McCurdy doesn t give us the right stuff but the real stuff, the minutiae of policy debate and political razzing that brought the space program into being and seems destined to bury it. It s a meandering, sometimes confusingly organized book, but an important one. McCurdy s prose style is understated and occasionally drab, but free of annoying postmodern tics . . . the book assembles a fascinating congeries of facts and fictions about trips to the moon, real or imagined. ref http www.sfsite.com fsf 1999 eh9901.htm Books , F&SF , January 1999 ref Publications McCurdy, Howard E. with David H. Rosenbloom , editors, Revisiting Waldo s Administrative State Constancy and Change in Public Administration , Georgetown University Press , 2006. McCurdy, Howard E., Faster, Better, Cheaper Low Cost Innovation in the U.S. Space Program , Johns Hopkins University Press , 2001. McCurdy, Howard E., Space and the American Imagination , Smithsonian Institution Press , 1998. References Reflist Persondata Metadata see Wikipedia Persondata . NAME Maccurdy, Howard E. ALTERNATIVE NAMES SHORT DESCRIPTION DATE OF BIRTH PLACE OF BIRTH DATE OF DEATH PLACE OF DEATH DEFAULTSORT Maccurdy, Howard E. Category Cornell University alumni Category Li ... more details
Jane Springer born Lawrenceburg, Tennessee is an American poet . ref http www.pw.org content jane springer 0 ref She won a 2010 Whiting Writers Award . ref http www.whitingfoundation.org whiting 2010 bios.html ref Life She graduated from Florida State University with a PhD in creative writing. She is Visiting Assistant Professor of English at Hamilton College New York Hamilton College . ref http www.hamilton.edu news story jane springer si recipient of 2010 whiting writers award ref ref http www.hamilton.edu academics departments faculty?dept English ref She was a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. ref http www.nea.gov features writers writersCMS writer.php?id 09 15 ref Dear Blackbird won the 2006 Agha Shahid Ali Prize. ref http content.lib.utah.edu cdm4 item viewer.php?CISOROOT upcat&CISOPTR 1189 ref Her work appeared in AGNI , ref http www.bu.edu agni poetry online 2006 springer.html ref Sycamore Review . ref http www.sycamorereview.com jane springer ref She is married they have a son. ref http www.connotationpress.com a poetry congeries with john hoppenthaler 873 jane springer poetry ref Works Dear Blackbird , University of Utah Press, 2007 Murder Ballad , Alice James Books, May 2012 References reflist External links http www.cincinnatireview.com blog uncategorized interview with jane springer Interview with Jane Springer , The Cinncinati Review , Don Bogen, December 19, 2010 http www.versedaily.org 2007 aboutjanespringerdb.shtml http janespringer.blogspot.com Poet s blog Persondata Metadata see Wikipedia Persondata . NAME Springer, Jane ALTERNATIVE NAMES SHORT DESCRIPTION Poet DATE OF BIRTH PLACE OF BIRTH DATE OF DEATH PLACE OF DEATH DEFAULTSORT Springer, Jane Category American poets Category Florida State University alumni Category Hamilton College New York faculty Category Living people Category People from Lawrence County, Tennessee ... more details
infobox Book See Wikipedia WikiProject Novels or Wikipedia WikiProject Books name A Spectre is Haunting Texas title orig translator image Image ASpectreIsHauntingTexas 1stEd .jpg image caption Cover of first edition hardcover author Fritz Leiber illustrator cover artist country United States language English language English series genre Science fiction novel publisher Victor Gollancz Ltd Gollancz release date 1969 english release date media type Print Hardcover & Paperback pages 245 pp isbn NA preceded by followed by A Spectre is Haunting Texas is a science fiction novel by Fritz Leiber , first published as a novel in 1969. It was originally published as a three part Serial literature serial in the magazine Galaxy Science Fiction in 1968. The title appears to be based on a Karl Marx quote from The Communist Manifesto A spectre is haunting Europe...the spectre of communism. Plot summary Scully Christopher Crockett La Cruz is an actor, fortune seeker and adventurer from the long isolated Orbital spaceflight orbital Technocracy bureaucratic technocratic Democracy democracies of Circumluna and the Bubbles Congeries. He lands in what he believes to be Canada to reclaim family mining interests only to discover that Canada is now North Texas and what is left of civilization in North America is ruled by primitive, backslapping, bigger than life anti intellectual good ole boys convinced of their own Morality moral superiority. In the tortured version of history known to the giant hormone boosted Anglo Saxons Anglo Saxon inhabitants who rule a diminutive Mexico Mexican underclass, the original Texas, or Texas , had actually secretly ruled the pre nuclear war United States since 1845. Texas escaped the nuclear destruction of the rest of the United States because of the foresight of Lyndon the First. An enormous bunker then known as the Houston Carlsbad Caverns Denver Kansas City Little Rock Pentagram and now referred to simply as the Texas Bunker had saved the heartland durin ... more details
Infobox Album See Wikipedia WikiProject Albums Name Strychnine.213 Type studio Artist Aborted Cover Aborted Strychnine.213.jpg Released Start date 2008 6 24 Recorded December 2007 Genre Deathgrind , technical death metal Length 37 13 Label Century Media Records Century Media Producer Gail Liebling Last album Slaughter & Apparatus A Methodical Overture br 2007 This album Strychnine.213 br 2008 Next album Coronary Reconstruction br 2010 Album ratings rev1 About.com rev1Score Rating 4 5 http heavymetal.about.com od cdreviews gr abortedstrychni.htm link rev2 Allmusic rev2Score Rating 3.5 5 Allmusic class album id r1390353 pure url yes link rev3 Blabbermouth rev3Score Rating 8 10 http www.roadrunnerrecords.com blabbermouth.net showreview.aspx?reviewID 1449 link Strychnine.213 is the sixth studio album by the Belgium Belgian death metal band Aborted , released on June 24, 2008 through Century Media Records . The sample used in the song A Murmur in Decrepit Wits is Aborted s take on a 1980s interview with Charles Manson . Track listing tracklist total length 37 13 title1 Carrion length1 1 46 title2 Ophiolatry on a Hemocite Platter length2 4 51 title3 I35 length3 3 45 title4 Pestiferous Subterfuge length4 4 24 title5 The Chyme Congeries length5 3 45 title6 A Murmur in Decrepit Wits length6 4 43 title7 Enterrement of an Idol length7 3 24 title8 Hereditary Bane length8 2 49 title9 Avarice of Vilification length9 3 34 title10 The Obfuscate length10 4 09 title11 Slaughtered note11 Pantera cover length11 3 55 Personnel Aborted Sven Svencho de Caluw Death growl vocals Sebastian Tuvi Electric guitar guitar , Backing vocalist backing vocals Peter Goemaere guitar Dan Wilding Drum kit drums Sven Janssens Bass guitar bass Production Alan Douches Mastering engineer mastering Gail Liebling Record producer producer , Audio engineering engineer Eric Rachel audio mixing recorded music mixing References Category 2008 albums Category Aborted band albums Category Century Media Records albums ... more details
unreferenced date January 2009 Rahimtulla M. Sayani April 5, 1847 1902 ,was an Indian politician who served as the President of the Indian National Congress for one term, succeeding Surendranath Banerjea . Rahimtullah M Sayani, born in the year 1847, a century before the Independence of India, belongs to Khoja Muslim Community, who were the disciples of the Aga Khan. He was associated with the Indian National Congress since its inception and he was one of the two Indian Muslims who attended its First Session of INC held at Bombay in the year 1885, where Womesh Chandra Bonnerjee was elected as the first President of Congress. Rahimtullah M Sayani was the Second Muslim to become the President of Indian National Congress . In the year 1896 he presided over the 12th Annual Session of the Congress held at Calcutta where he was elected as the President of Congress and became the Second Muslim to achieve such Position. His presidential address to the Session was the Best delivered so far as it was hailed by a contemporary journal of that period. Rahimtullah M Sayani,was western educated, a Lawyer by profession who achieved public eminence and professional excellence, he was elected as a member of the Bombay Municipal Corporation and was the Sheriff of Bombay in 1885, also elected as President of the Corporation in 1888. Twice he was elected to the Bombay Legislative Council and was also elected to the Imperial Legislative Council 1896 1898 . Quotes We should endeavour to promote personal intimacy and friendship amongst all the great communities of India, to develop and consolidate sentiments of national growth and unity, to weld them together into one nationality, to effect a moral union amongst them, to remove the taunt that we are not a nation, but only a congeries of races and creeds which have no cohesion in then and to bring about stronger and stronger friendly ties of common nationality. From the Presidential Address, Indian National Congress I.N.C. , Rahimtulla M. S ... more details
BLP sources date August 2010 Page Stegner born 1937, Salt Lake City, Utah is a novelist, essayist, and historian who has written extensively about the American West. He is the son of novelist Wallace Stegner . ref cite news url http deseretnews.com article 1,5143,695232661,00.html title Stegner s heirs object to republication date December 3, 2007 work Deseret News accessdate August 5, 2010 ref Career Stegner received his B.A. in history from Stanford University in 1959, followed by a Ph.D in American literature in 1964. He served as a Professor of American Literature and Director of the creative writing program at the University of California, Santa Cruz from 1965 to 1995, at which time he focused his efforts on writing. He has received a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship 1980 , a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship 1981 and a Guggenheim Fellowship 1982 . He is married to novelist Lynn Stegner . ref cite news url http www.metroactive.com papers cruz 11.03.99 lq stegner 9944.html title MetroActive Books Lynn Stegner date November 3, 1999 work Metro Silicon Valley accessdate August 5, 2010 ref They live in Santa Fe, New Mexico . Selected writings Non fiction Escape Into Aesthetics , The Dial Press, c1966, Library of Congress Number 68 22588 Nabokov s Congeries , The Viking Press, c1968, Library of Congross Catalogue Number 68 22868 American Places , with Wallace Stegner and Eliot Porter , E.P.Dutton, c1981, ISBN 0 525 05390 5 Islands of the West , Sierra Club Books , c1985, ISBN 0 87156 844 6 Outposts of Eden a Curmudgeon at Large in the American West , Sierra Club Books, c1989, ISBN 0 87156 672 9 Grand Canyon The Great Abyss , Tehabi Books, c1995, ISBN 0 06 258573 8 Winning the Wild West the Epic Saga of the American Frontier, 1800 1899 , foreword by Larry McMurtry , Tehabi Books, c2002 ISBN 0 7432 3291 7 Adios, Amigos Tales of Sustenance and Purification in the American West , Counterpoint, c2008, ISBN 1 59376 169 4 Fiction The Edge, The Dial ... more details
First Love may refer to tocright Film First Love 1939 film First Love 1939 film , a 1939 film starring Deanna Durbin First Love 1970 film First Love 1970 film , a 1970 Maximilian Schell film, based on the novella by Turgenev Cinta Pertama 1973 film First Love 1973 film , a 1973 Indonesian film directed by Teguh Karya First Love 1974 film First Love 1974 film , a 1974 Krzysztof Kie lowski film First Love 1977 film First Love 1977 film , a 1977 film starring Susan Dey and William Katt First Love 2000 film First Love 2000 film , a 2000 film directed by Tetsuo Shinohara First Love 2004 film First Love 2004 film , a 2004 film based on a novel by Marco Mariolini Cinta Pertama 2006 film First Love 2006 film , a 2006 Indonesian film directed by Nayato Fio Nuala First Love A Little Thing Called Love First Love A Little Thing Called Love 2010 film , a 2010 Thai romantic comedy drama film starring Mario Maurer and Fern Pimchanok Leuwisedpaiboon Literature First Love novella First Love novella , an 1860 novella by Ivan Turgenev First Love short story First Love short story , a 1946 short story by Samuel Beckett First Love play First Love play , a 1795 play by Richard Cumberland dramatist Richard Cumberland First Love , a short story by Vladimir Nabokov appearing in Nabokov s Congeries and as Colette in Speak, Memory First Love , a comic book published by Harvey Comics First Love A Gothic Tale , a novella by Joyce Carol Oates First Love , a poem by John Clare First Love, Last Rites , a 1975 collection of short stories by Ian McEwan Music First Love Emmy the Great album First Love Emmy the Great album , a 2009 album by Emma Lee Moss Emmy the Great First Love Hikaru Utada album First Love Hikaru Utada album , a 1999 album by Hikaru Utada First Love Karina Pasian album First Love Karina Pasian album , a 2008 R&B album Karina Pasian First Love Yiruma album First Love Yiruma album First Love Hikaru Utada song First Love Hikaru Utada song , a 1999 song by Hikaru Utada First Love The M ... more details
otherpeople Elizabeth Robinson born 1961, Denver, Colorado is an American poet and professor, author of eleven collections of poetry, most recently The Orphan and Its Relations Fence Books, 2008 . ref http connotationpress.com a poetry congeries with john hoppenthaler october 2010 581 elizabeth robinson poetry Connotation Press Issue III, Vol. III November 2011 Monthly Features Elizabeth Robinson Poetry ref ref http www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org grant recipients elizabethrobinson.html ref Her work has appeared in the Colorado Review , the Denver Quarterly , Poetry Salzburg Review , ref http www.poetrysalzburg.com contributors r.htm ref and New American Quarterly . ref http lannan.georgetown.edu bioarchive bio20072008 robinson.html ref With Avery Burns, Joseph Noble, Rusty Morrison, and Brian Strang, she co edits 26 magazine. With Colleen Lookingbill, she co edits the EtherDome Chapbook series which publishes chapbooks by emerging women poets, and she co edits Instance Press with Beth Anderson and Stacy Szymaszek. She graduated from Bard College , Brown University , and Pacific School of Religion . She moved from the Bay Area to Boulder, Colorado to teach at the University of Colorado at Boulder University of Colorado . Awards 2008 Fence Modern Poets Prize for The Orphan and Its Relations 2001 National Poetry Series for Pure Descent Published works Full length Collections Inaudible Trumpeters Harbor Mountain Press , 2008 cite book title The Orphan & Its Relations publisher Fence Books year 2008 isbn 9781934200162 cite book title Under That Silky Roof publisher Burning Deck Press year 2006 isbn 9781886224711 cite book title Apostrophe publisher Apogee Press year 2006 isbn 9780974468792 cite book title Apprehend publisher Apogee Press year 2003 isbn 9780971318953 cite book title Pure Descent publisher Sun & Moon Press year 2003 isbn 9781557134103 cite book title Harrow publisher Omnidawn Publishing year 2001 isbn 9781890650070 cite book title House Made of Silv ... more details
James Dodsley 1724 1797 was an English bookseller. Life Dodsley was born near Mansfield in Nottinghamshire in 1724. He was probably employed in the shop of his prosperous brother, Robert Dodsley Robert , by whom he was taken into partnership the firm trading as R. & J. Dodsley in Pall Mall and whom he eventually succeeded in 1759. The plan of the tax on receipts was suggested by him to the Rockingham administration in 1782. On 7 June 1787 he lost 2,500 worth of quirestock, burnt in a warehouse. He paid the usual fine instead of serving the office of Sheriff of London and Middlesex in 1788. He led a secluded life, and some years before his death gave up his shop, dealing wholesale in his own publications. The retail business was taken over by George Nicol bookseller George Nicol . He kept a carriage many years, but studiously wished that his friends should not know it, nor did he ever use it on the eastern side of Temple Bar , according to the Gentleman s Magazine . ref Gent. Mag. vol. lxvii. pt. i. p. 347. ref Publications In 1775 he printed A Petition and Complaint touching a Piracy of Letters by the late Earl of Chesterfield, A list of forty one works published by him is advertised at the end of Thomas Hull s Select Letters, 1778, 2 vols. 8vo. In 1780 he produced an improved edition of the Collection of Old Plays, 12 vols., edited by Isaac Reed , who also edited for him again, two years later, the Collection of Poems, 6 vols. He was a member of the Congeries , a club of booksellers who produced Samuel Johnson s Lives of the Poets and other works. Dodsley was the puzzled referee in a well known bet about Oliver Goldsmith s lines, poem For he who fights and runs away May live to fight another day, poem which George Augustus Selwyn politician George Selwyn correctly contended were not to be found in Butler s Hudibras . Dodsley carried on an extensive business, but had other interests writing from Woodstock on 26 July 1789 Thomas King refers to his farming and haymaki ... more details
Incubator mzk File Taraba State Nigeria.png thumb right 220px Taraba State , Nigeria The Mambila or Mambilla people of Nigeria and Cameroon live on the Mambilla plateau in Sardauna, Nigeria Sardauna Loca government area of Taraba State in Nigeria and on the Tikar Plain in Cameroon as well as in several small villages further north towards the town of Banyo. The preferred ethnonym is Mambila in Cameroon and Mambilla in Nigeria. Nor is also used the word for person in Nigerian dialects of Mambila . Identification The Mambila people of Nigeria and Cameroon regard themselves as a group with a common identity. In Nigerian dialects they refer to themselves as bo nor the people while in Cameroon there is a collective noun Ba that is used in the unmarked sense to refer to the Mambila, and also to refer to Mambila in Cameroon on the Tikar plain see below contrastively with neighbouring Mambila on the highlands of the Mambilla plateau who can be referred to as Bo ba bo. The populations of different Mambila villages speak different dialects of Mambila or closely related Mambiloid languages. They also share a set of closely related cultural practices, in particular a conjunction of masquerade and oath taking called so , shuwa , sua or suaga . In the Somie dialect this is phonetically written as wa a . See discussion in Sua in Somie cited below. The Mambila language is a congeries of dialects and related languages. The SIL Ethnologue database gives two codes http www.ethnologue.com 14 show language.asp?code MYA MYA for the Cameroonian dialects and http www.ethnologue.com 14 show language.asp?code MZK MZK for the Nigerian dialects. See the survey work of Bruce Connell on the VIMS website cited below, and the article on Mambiloid languages . Location Most Mambila live on the Mambilla plateau Gembu in Sardauna Local Government coord 6.71383337 11.25002 name Gembu, Nigeria in Taraba State of Nigeria. This is a highland plateau, the northerly continuation of the Bamenda grassfields. ... more details
A shoggoth occasionally shaggoth ref This spelling appears in the original Arkham House printing for The Thing on the Doorstep 1937 in literature 1937 or shuggoth , though the definitive manuscripts show that the proper spelling is in fact shoggoth . Burleson, H.P. Lovecraft, A Critical Study , footnote 14, p. 195. ref is a fictional monster in the Cthulhu Mythos . The being was mentioned in passing in sonnet XX Night Gaunts of H.P. Lovecraft s sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth , written in 1929 in literature 1929 1930 in literature 30 , and were expounded upon in his novella At the Mountains of Madness 1931 in literature 1931 . Image CoC Shoggoth.png right thumb 300px A Shoggoth as seen in the game Call of Cthulhu Dark Corners of the Earth Description cquote2 It was a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel filling front that bore down upon us, crushing the frantic penguins and slithering over the glistening floor that it and its kind had swept so evilly free of all litter. H. P. Lovecraft, At The Mountains of Madness The definitive description of shoggoths comes from the above quoted story. In it, Lovecraft writes them as massive amoeba like creatures looking like they are made out of tar , with multiple eyes floating on the surface. They are described as protoplasmic , lacking any default body shape and instead being able to form limbs and organs at will. An average shoggoth measured fifteen feet across when a sphere , though the story mentions ones of much greater size. Mythos media most commonly shows them, although intelligent to some degree, dealing with problems using their great size and strength. For instance, the original one mentioned in At the Mountains of Madness simply rolled over and crushed giant albino penguins that were in the way as it pursued the charact ... more details
The Vane Sisters is the penultimate short story by Vladimir Nabokov , written in March 1951. ref name Elusiveness Cite journal last Quinn first Brian title The Elusiveness of Superficial Reality in Nabokov s The Vane Sisters journal Studies in Languages and Cultures pages 83 91 publisher Faculty of Languages and Cultures, Kyushu University date February 2005 ref It is famous for providing one of the most extreme examples of an unreliable narrator . It was first published in The Hudson Review and Encounter magazine Encounter in 1959, later in Nabokov s Quartet 1966 , Nabokov s Congeries 1968 reprinted as The Portable Nabokov , 1971 , Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories 1975 , and The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov 1995 . The short story revolves around two professors, of which one is the narrator, and their respective affairs with two students, the Vane sisters, for whom the story is titled. The narrator recounts his experiences with the two sisters, and ultimately meditates upon the possibility of intervention by ghosts into his reality. Plot summary The story begins on a Sunday night as the narrator, a French literature professor at a girls college, runs into his former colleague D. whom he has not seen for the past four years. Amidst his usual afternoon stroll, the narrator, who prides himself on his sharp eye, fixes upon icicles dripping from a nearby eave with such intense meditation that he follows their watery trail to Kelly Road, where D. used to live. Fixated and in raw awareness, he continues walking, until his observations lead him towards the edge of town, where he catches the glimpse of reddish shadows cast by a parking meter and restaurant sign. There, he sees D. who is passing through on his way from Albany to Boston, and D. casually informs him that Cynthia Vane, with whom the narrator had formerly had a short relationship with, has died mdash a fact D. has learned through his lawyer. The story then shifts to the narrator s recounting of his initial expe ... more details
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