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  • Published: 2 January 2013
  • ISBN: 9780141191164
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $26.99

The Original of Laura

(Dying Is Fun) A Novel in Fragments




The final masterwork that was nearly destroyed, from one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century

Dr Philip Wild, a man of brilliance, wit, fortune and tremendous bulk, is used to suffering humiliations at the hands of his wife, the younger, slender, and rudely promiscuous Flora. But in a novel, a 'maddening masterpiece' documenting her infidelities, written by one of her lovers and given to the doctor, she appears as My Laura. Dishonoured, Wild still finds pleasure in life, by indulging in self-annihilation, beginning with the removal of his toes.

  • Published: 2 January 2013
  • ISBN: 9780141191164
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $26.99

About the author

Vladimir Nabokov

One of the twentieth century's master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977) was born in St Petersburg, but left Russia when the Bolsheviks seized power. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.

His first novel in English was The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, published in 1941. His other books include Ada or Ardor (1969), Laughter in the Dark (1933), Pale Fire (1962), the short story collection Details of a Sunset (1976) and Lolita (1955), his best-known novel.

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