Alexey Sklyarenko:
"Pushkin's poem "The Bronze Horseman" is known on Antiterra as
"Headless Horseman." [...] In our world, Headless Horseman is a novel
by Captain Mayne Reid.
JM:The adventures found in
"La Bibliothèque Rose," which both Nabokov and his uncle Ruka enjoyed,
are mainly directed to young girls but this didn't seem to disencourage
them. I find myself unable to read certain authors like those Nabokov classified as writers of books for
school-boys.Mayne Reid's "Headless Horseman" falls into this category.
Here are some of the informations found in
the wiki, which associate the names of Nabokov and Reid:
"Vladimir Nabokov recalled The
Headless Horseman as a favourite adventure novel of his childhood
years - "which had given him a vision of the prairies and the great
open spaces and the overarching sky." At 11, Nabokov even translated The
Headless Horseman into French alexandrines." (Classics on
Cassette "Speak, Memory", John Espey. Los Angeles Times Book Review;
Page 8; Book Review Desk. October 20, 1991.
Also D.B.Johnson seems to have taken
a particular interest in Reid's influence over Nabokov:
1. Nabokov's Golliwoggs: Lodi Reads English 1899-1909 by D.
Barton Johnson (Zembla, p4) "Nabokov's memory was, first and foremost,
visual. It was further developed by his art teacher, the celebrated
painter Mstislav Dobuzhinski, who assigned the boy exercises in
reproducing from memory chance objects and scenes. It is hardly
surprising that Nabokov's recollections of his early reading matter
center more upon their illustrations rather than the texts. Not only
was this so for the Golliwogg picture books but for the more adult
adventure books of his later boyhood. Most of the scenes that Nabokov
describes in Speak, Memory from his Mayne Reid years are from the
illustrations. Not only the pictures but many details from them were
recalled with remarkable accuracy (and a few mistakes) forty-five years
later."
2. Cycnos | Volume 10 n°1 NABOKOV : Autobiography, Biography and
Fiction - Don Barton Johnson: Vladimir Nabokov and Captain Mayne
Reid
"Chapter Ten of Speak Memory explores the theme of Nabokov’s sexual
awakening between the summers of 1909 or 1910 and 1915.1 Oddly, Nabokov
chooses Mayne Reid’s 1865 Wild West adventure novel, The Headless
Horseman, as the springboard for his investigation of this and a number
of other themes. We shall see that the Anglo-Irish novelist plays a
surprising role in Nabokov’s life and work.The chapter opens with
Nabokov’s fond recollections of The Headless Horseman and of his
friendship with his first cousin, Yuri Rausch von Traubenberg..." (read
more: revel.unice.fr/cycnos/index.html?id=1303 )