Keith Gessen Blog

The publication of an excerpt of *The Original of Laura* in this month’s Playboy made me wonder when it was that Nabokov last made it on the cover. A quick search revealed this cover from May 1969, with a promise that it contained “Vladimir Nabokov’s sexiest new work since Lolita.” (Ada, probably.) Maybe there were others after that. I remember a very gracious letter in Nabokov’s collection of letters, in response to Playboy giving him their annual fiction prize, I think, and Nabokov says something like, “What a pleasant surprise—but then I have found that Playboy is always full of pleasant surprises.”