VLADIMIR NABOKOV (ca. 1951-76) Photo archive

New York, Switzerland: AP Wire World Photo, ca. 1951-1976. Set of four vintage original 8 x 10″ (20 x 25 cm) black-and-white glossy silver gelatin photos. Information blurbs and date stamps on verso. Minor use, about fine.

Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian while living in Berlin, where he met his wife, Véra Nabokov. From 1948 to 1959, Nabokov was a professor of Russian literature at Cornell University. His 1955 novel Lolita ranked fourth on Modern Library’s list of the 100 best 20th-century novels in 1998 and is considered one of the greatest works of 20th-century literature. (Wikipedia)

The earliest portrait is from when he taught at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. For the 1958 portrait of him reading, he is credited as the author of Lolita. The 1976 photos are during a stay in Switzerland.