Vladimir Nabokov

NABOKV-L post 0000005, Thu, 18 Mar 1993 14:22:46 -0800

Subject
Re: Query on current work (fwd)
Date
Body
---------- Text of forwarded message ----------
Date: 15 Mar 93 11:41:08 EST
From: EJNICOL@engfac.indstate.edu
Subject: Re: Query on current work

>From Charles Nicol
To the Nabokovians
Re Mayne Reid

Mayne Reid is still out there in the ex-Soviet hinterlands. When I
was a Fulbright lecturer in Tbilisi (in Soviet Georgia) in 1984, one
of the British lecturers came to me with a puzzle: one of his
students had mentioned the great nineteenth century British author
Mayne Reid, of whom he had never heard. Thanks to Nabokov, I was
able to explain who he was.

I have a little return query concerning such things. Mayne Reid is
quite forgotten in English-speaking countries, but there are similar
examples: Poe has a greater reputation in France than at home, for
instance, where he is a minor figure compared to some of his
contemporaries. Nabokov often suggested that Dostoevsky was a
similar instance: a minor author at home, a major one in America.
How true is this?