Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0005879, Sat, 31 Mar 2001 10:16:30 -0800

Subject
Query: Best text of Pale Fire?
Date
Body
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>From Mary Bellino (iambe@javanet.com):

Can anyone tell me which of the editions of _Pale Fire_ is the most
reliable textually? To judge by the brevity of Brian Boyd's apparatus to
the Library of America edition, it would seem that the original Putnam
edition wasn't particularly error-filled, but I'm wondering whether any
further collations have been done. In particular, there are two
misspellings on page 467 of the Library of America edition, "chtonic"
and "tryptich" (though the latter is spelled correctly on page 516, and
the former is spelled correctly in Boyd's own note) -- I'm not sure
whether these represent editorial decisions, genuine cruces, or mere
slips. If anyone has made a complete collation of one or more of the
editions with the ms (that is, VN's pencilled index cards at the Library
of Congress), I would appreciate hearing about it. Also, what is the
relationship of the text of the Vintage paperback (which I haven't seen)
to the earlier editions?

Many thanks,
Mary