LAUGHTER IN THE DARK

First UK edition, first printing. Original black cloth lettered in silver to the spine, in the Charles Mozley designed dustwrapper. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the contents clean throughout. A few light spots to the upper edge of the page block. In the dustwrapper, with a tear (c 2 cm) across the fold between the spine and rear panel and a vertical area of loss to the upper edge of the lightly faded spine (cutting into the title printed there). Minor rubbing to spine tips, light creasing to rear panel. Not price-clipped (15s net to the front flap).

Written in 1931 in Russian as ' ' (Kamera Obskura) when the author was living in Berlin, Nabokov's fifth novel was serialized in the Parisian émigré journal, 'Sovremennye Zapiski' (1931-2), before being published in book form in 1932 (also in Paris). 'Camera Obscura', as translated into English by W. Roy, was published in London by John Long in 1936. Unhappy with Roy's version Nabokov published his own translation in the US as 'Laughter in the Dark' in 1938 (Bobbs-Merrill, 1938), which wasn't published in the UK until the present edition was issued in 1961. "Once upon a time there lived in Berlin, Germany, a man called Albinus", the novel begins. "He was rich, respectable, happy; one day he abandoned his wife for the sake of a youthful mistress; he loved; was not loved; and his life ended in disaster." "Laughter in the Dark", wrote the anonymous reviewer in the TLS (7 April, 1961), "is a cruel little masterpiece, one of those books [...] from which nothing could be taken away and to which nothing could be added without damage done." (Field 0706)