Dear Charles,

In the 1932 novel Despair there is no reference to "cresset," just to something beginning with 'Memoirs of a --' of a what? .... 'Justification of a Likeness'? Apparently VN first read the work in another edition* and only later, before writing Pale Fire, acquired the Cresset.

Carolyn

Yes, it's coming back to me that that is why I asked in 1998 whether there was a translation of Hogg's Sinner into Russian or French before 1932. Could it be that VN was recommended the book by Gide, some time before writing Despair?

 

Charles