Conclusive Evidence. New York, 1951
Speak, Memory. New York, 1967

In 1946, Nabokov wrote to Doubleday that he was planning "a new kind of autobiography, or rather a new hybrid between that and a novel." From the start he envisioned it as a series of discrete but stylistically and thematically linked chapters. In 1936 he had written "Mademoiselle O.," a somewhat fictionalized portrait of his Swiss nanny Cécile Miauton, to be delivered at a reading in Brussels and published in a Parisian journal (Mesures). It was translated into English and included in Nine Stories and Nabokov's Dozen, and, divested of its fictional elements, was included in his memoir. From January 1948 to February 1951, Nabokov published fourteen reminiscences in various American journals, primarily The New Yorker. They covered the years between his "awakening of consciousness" in August 1903, at the age of four, and a parallel dawning in his son and future translator, Dmitri, as his family left for the United States in May 1940.

Nabokov wrote to Katharine White that after surviving the "atrocious metamorphosis" from Russian to American writer: "I swore I would never go back from my wizened Hyde form to my ample Jekyll one - but there I was, after fifteen years of absence, wallowing again in the bitter luxury of my Russian verbal might. . . ." Nevertheless, in the summer of 1953 - "between butterfly-hunting and writing Lolita and Pnin" - he decided to translate Conclusive Evidence into a Russian "version and recomposition." Again he sought Véra's help, lest another, less able contender make an attempt. Drugie berega [Other Shores] was published in New York by Chekhov House in 1954. Though his books were officially banned in the Soviet Union, he had a reasonably large audience among émigrés in the United States and in Europe. Nabokov found that recalling "Russian memories" in his native tongue sharpened the images, and called attention to the deficiencies of Conclusive Evidence. He began a revised English-language edition in 1965, published in 1967 as Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited, in which he incorporated recent corrections and "introduced basic changes and copious additions." He continued, in the foreword: "What I still have not been able to rework through want of specific documentation, I have now preferred to delete for the sake of over-all truth. On the other hand, a number of facts relating to ancestors and other personages have come to light and have been incorporated in this final version of Speak, Memory."

By the time of its publication, he had already begun to assemble material for a future installment, Speak On, Memory or Speak, America, covering the twenty years spent in the United States, but the project never came to fruition; dozens of preliminary note cards survive, and are on view throughout the exhibition at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library.

The items listed below pertain to Nabokov's life and career and are the contents of the exhibition at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, on view from April 23 through August 21, 1999. This checklist, primarily of items from the Library's Nabokov Archive, is included here to provide a sense of the rich holdings in this special collection.

Vladimir Nabokov
Conclusive Evidence, a Memoir
New York: Harper and Brothers, [1951]
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
"Curtain Raiser," chapter ten of Conclusive Evidence
Typescript, with Nabokov's holograph corrections, ca. 1948
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
"Gardens and Parks," chapter fifteen of Conclusive Evidence, with notes to the publisher
Typescript signed, with Nabokov's holograph corrections, ca. 1950-51
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
Typed letter (carbon) to John Fischer
102 East Seneca Street, Ithaca, New York, July 20, 1950
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
Typed letter (carbon) to John Fischer
102 East Seneca Street, Ithaca, New York, July 28, 1950
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
Changes to Conclusive Evidence
Holograph manuscript on 404 index cards, unsigned and undated
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
"Speak, Memory: An Autobiography Revisited"
Typescript, with published pages of Conclusive Evidence, and Nabokov's holograph corrections, [1965]
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
Speak Memory: An Autobiography Revisited
Holograph manuscript list of illustrations with captions, [1965]
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
["Speak On, Memory"]
Holograph notes on index cards, ca. 1969
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
Pocket diaries
1943, 1963, 1964, 1966, 1968, 1969, 1972
Berg Collection

Vladimir Nabokov
Capsule biography
Holograph notes on two index cards, 1962
Berg Collection