NABOKOV VLADIMIR: (1899-1977)

NABOKOV VLADIMIR: (1899-1977) Russian-born American novelist and poet whose works include Lolita (1955). A rare D.S., Vladimir Nabokov, two pages (separate leaves), 4to, n.p. (New York?), 4th August 1969. The printed document takes the form of a letter from Columbia Pictures addressed to the publishers McGraw Hill International and concerns an earlier Option Agreement ´with respect to the motion picture and allied rights in and to that certain literary work entitled "Ada or Ardor"´, agreeing to extend the option until 5th August 1970 and continuing to state, in part, ´In consideration for the extension of time for the exercise of the option as provided......the undersigned hereby agrees to pay the sum of Thirty Thousand ($30,000) Dollars as follows: (a) To you, upon execution of this agreement, the sum of Twenty-Seven Thousand ($27,000) Dollars, receipt of which is hereby acknowledged. (b) To Irving Paul Lazar Agency, for your account, the sum of Three Thousand ($3,000) Dollars payable on January 5, 1980´. Signed by Nabokov in blue ink at the conclusion, indicating his agreement to the contents of the document, and also countersigned by a representative of Columbia Pictures. Some light age wear and two file holes and a few staple holes to the head of each page, otherwise VG Nabokov´s novel Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle (1969) was composed from two earlier writing projects and the published cumulation would represent the novelist´s longest work. The American scholar Alfred Appel described the novel as ´a great work of art, a necessary book, radiant and rapturous´ and said that it ´provides further evidence that [Nabokov] is a peer of Kafka, Proust and Joyce´. Despite Columbia Pictures´ interest in the work and securing the rights to make Ada or Ardor into a film, the project was never completed.