Speak, Memory, first published in 1951 as
Conclusive Evidence and then assiduously revised in 1966, is an elegant and rich evocation of Nabokov's life and times, even as it offers incisive insights into his major works, including
Lolita,
Pnin,
Despair,
The Gift,
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, and
The Defense.
"When he is writing about someone or something he loves, he is irresistible; when he is writing about someone or something he despises, he can manage to enlist one's sympathies, if only momentarily, for the object of his contempt." --The New York Review of Books