Vladimir Nabokov, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1960). Bound by Rachel Ward-Sale, 2025.
Bookbinder's Statement
Bound using a long stitch construction, the sections and endpapers are sewn directly onto a folded velum spine attached with leather slips to incised acrylic boards. The outer endpapers are dark grey paper decorated with airbrushed vertical stripes and ruled ink lines. The inner endpapers are lighter grey paper with the title hand and type written over airbrushed stripes.
A striped paper concertina guard and airbrushed edges continue the endpaper design into the book. Acrylic boards have been incised and sanded with curved lines suggesting turning pages. The title has been typewritten onto the coloured velum spine.
The narrator attempts to write a biography of his recently deceased half-brother, the author Sebastian Knight. Fact and fiction interweave as he tries to piece together a narrative from information provided by Sebastian's friends and acquaintances as well as his semi-autobiographical novels.
The facts prove illusive, and the full details of Sebastian's life only emerge slowly as the novel progresses. The binding reflects this process with the design appearing gradually as the book is opened and the pages turned. Sebastian's habit of copying out his typed manuscripts by hand appears as hand and type written text on the endpapers, also referencing the importance in the novel of a man who could write his name upside down.