The Market Value

Fifty Years Later: The Gift as a Collector’s Item

Although Nabokov’s manuscripts and correspondence related to The Gift are in the hands of institutional archives, signed editions of this novel have been offered at open auctions and it is this private sector of modern cultural economics that has determined the market value of Gift -related items. The ﬁ rst major donation of Vladimir Nabokov’s manuscripts to the Library of Congress took place between 1958 and 1965; the second large set of papers was acquired in 1990 by the Berg Collection of the New York Public Library after the curators “spent many hours in the atom-proof Archive shelter and in a glassy arbor perusing materials . . . [later]

transferred to new quarters without excessive disarray by a multinational team of movers and secretaries” (D. Nabokov, “History-to-be” 11-12).

In a 2004 interview, Glenn Horowitz of Horowitz Bookseller, Inc. claimed that his ﬁ rst big archive sale was to W. S. Merwin, for $185,000, in 1983. Since then he has also sold the archives of Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller and Nadine Gordimer. But what really put him on the map, according to media reports, was the 1991 sale of Nabokov’s literary estate to the New York Public Library, widely believed to have been the ﬁ rst archive sale to top $1 million.¹¹ Although both the Library and the Nabokovs were enthusiastic, it took two years to implement the complicated arrangement. Ultimately, Horowitz agreed to lower the purchase price, provided that the library paid Dmitri in full in one installment.

For Nabokov’s hundredth birth anniversary the rare books that were still a part of the family collection were again entrusted to the same book dealer. The idea was to repeat the strategy that Horowitz had successfully enacted in 1996 when he took responsibility for the James Joyce materials. To stimulate public interest, he organized a museum-quality exhibition and catalog, including ﬁ rst editions and the proofs of the ﬁ rst English edition of what became Finnegans Wake; another exhibit on Ulysses at Horowitz’s New York gallery in 1998 boasted a work on loan from the National Library of Ireland. The same elaborate approach was employed in the Nabokov sale, accompanied by the printing of an illustrated catalogue copiously edited by Sarah Funke.¹²

11 Horowitz is known in the business for his creative deals, which include a combination of gifts and sales (under current tax law, living writers and artists derive no tax beneﬁ t from donating their work). He collects an agent’s fee of ten to twenty percent on archive sales and had spent years winning over the executors to the estate, Nabokov’s widow, Véra, who died in 1991, and then the couple’s son, Dmitri (Donadio 2007).

12 I wish to acknowledge that all the information on the editions in the Horowitz sale comes from this expertly prepared compendium (Funke 159-68).

Among the detailed descriptions of over a hundred and thirty Nabokov ﬁ rst editions on sale — reproducing inscriptions, annotations and, in some instances, full-page color illustrations of Nabokov’s drawings — the catalogue included seven different editions of The Gift.

The Russian-language Dar (New York: Chekhov Publishing House, 1952), the ﬁ rst publication of Nabokov’s masterwork in the United States, was listed for $35,000 (lot no. 71). This volume, abundantly annotated by Nabokov and specially bound in grey pebbled cloth copy, was stamped in black and labeled by hand. It is inscribed to Véra in Russian on the ﬁ rst blank, in blue ink: “Dushen’ke moei dorogoi V.” (To my dear darling. V.). Date and location in English: Cambridge, Mass 16.V.1952. And in Russian again: “Liubov’ moia!” (My love!) in blue pencil.

At the bottom of the dedication appears Nabokov’s current address: 9 Maynard Place, and in grey pencil in Vera’s hand, y May Sarton (Russian for “at the house of May Sarton”) — Mrs. Sarton had rented them her place in Cambridge.

The book contains four loosely inserted leaves — three are on Montreux Palace letterhead, one is blank — all sides covered with Dmitri’s handwritten notes in Russian.

These notes are mostly explanatory in nature but also feature a few explications of opaque allusions and cryptic quotes from Pushkin buried in the text of the novel, as well as suggestions for idiomatic translation of certain phrases.¹³ The book, purchased by Cornell University, has minor abrasions to multiple pages due to the removal of post-it-style notes from the fragile, acidic paper; a few dozen post-its still remain.

Lot № 72 in Horowitz’s price list was the 1963 Putnam edition of The Gift (black cloth; dust-jacket; minor wear to head of spine), with a foreword written specially for this publication. This dedication copy, inscribed For Véra in pencil on the half-title, was offered for $40,000, which makes it the most expensive among the editions of The Gift ever appraised. The ﬂ yleaf explains the high asking price: in addition to an autograph, the book is decorated with Nabokov’s beautiful original drawing.

13 I would like to thank Katherine Reagan of the Rare Books collection at Cornell University for providing me with the copies of these notes.

[Ill. 1-27] By permission of Cornell University, Rare

Manuscripts collection.

The sketch represents an imaginary butterﬂ y with a drop shadow on the page (coloring pencils, 37 × 68 mm, page 1). Nabokov’s hand was so heavy as he outlined the butterﬂ y that some lead was transferred to the following page, the list of his works. The author signed beneath the image Parnassius orpheus Godunov and added the sign of Venus.¹⁴ At least one element of the invented name does exist: Parnassiens include the Apollo and the Small Apollo butterﬂ ies.

The name of the species is formed from the Latin name of Orpheus (the Greeks of the Classical age venerated this legendary ﬁ gure as chief among poets and musicians), and also is a partial anagram of Fyodor’s ﬁ rst name (the ph sound is rendered by the equivalent of the letter f in the Russian spelling of Orpheus’

name). The discovery of the butterﬂ y is attributed to Godunov who allegedly observed the mating habits within this genus.

To the left of the picture Nabokov indicated the page number. This reference is especially valuable: if we follow Nabokov’s clue (page 124 in this edition), we can identify the particular passage of The Gift matching Nabokov’s source for inspiration. In this excerpt, Fyodor evokes his father, entomologist Godunov-Cherdyntsev, and mentions his desire to reproduce Parnassius orpheus in the frontispiece of his work:

[M]y father discovered the true nature of the corneal formation appearing beneath the abdomen in the impregnated females of Parnassians, and explained how her mate, working with a pair of spatulate appendages, places and molds on her a chastity belt of his own manufacture, shaped differently in every species of this genus, being sometimes a little boat, sometimes a helical shell, sometimes — as in the case of the exceptionally rare dark-cinder gray orpheus Godunov — a replica of a tiny lyre. And as a frontispiece to my present work I think I would like to display precisely this butterfly — for I can hear him talk about it . . . (G112)

The continuation of the passage describes the operation which allowed his father to preserve the specimen, “so that it dried that way forever.” This pricey edition also bears an ex libris label: “From the library of Vladimir Nabokov. Palace Hotel Montreux. Switzerland.”

Nabokov owned three identical copies of the 1963 edition, but, lacking the butterﬂ y drawing, the other two (lots 73 and 74) have less value (priced $27,500 and $25,000 respectively). Both editions are Nabokov’s corrected copies. The former preserves a pencil list on the front endpaper of eight misprints, with two more added by Véra; a typescript sheet, with handwritten revisions in either Vladimir’s or Véra’s hand, covering both sides, contains a side-by-side comparison of changes to be made to the hardcover and paperback editions, listed by page

14 Funke’s catalogue confuses it with the sign of Mars.

number. Many of the typescript revisions are crossed out, checked off, or bear manuscript notes next to them, and consist primarily of changes in spelling, the occasional addition, deletion or substitution of words, or simple marginal check marks.

The third and last Putnam edition of The Gift owned by the writer has a satin ribbon, its top edge gilt with the cloth in full brown morocco (instead of the regular black cloth), and stamped “V.N.” in gilt on the front cover. This appears to be a unique printing of the book, in the publisher’s presentation binding: it was produced on thicker paper than the regular edition, it is 5mm wider, and is trimmed 5mm shorter than any other copy examined by Glenn Horowitz and Sarah Funke. The emendations in this edition were insigniﬁ cant (Nabokov altered a few words and corrected the spelling of Greek references).

The American Putnam copies in this sale were complemented by three editions from the British publishing house, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (1963). This ﬁ rst English edition from a new setting of type incorporated only three of the ten changes Nabokov made to his copy of the Putnam edition, but introduced multiple new printing errors. In Nabokov’s centennial year the cost of the earlier of two dedication copies, inscribed in pencil on the front endpaper, For Véra from the captor, Montreux 23.x.l963, was appraised at $30,000. The edition features an elaborate imagined butterﬂ y, Vanessa atalurticae Nab., which Kurt Johnson calls a “‘hybrid’ between two Brushfoots, Vanessa atalanta and Vanessa urticae.”¹⁵

The second dedication copy in the white dust-jacket was inscribed by Nabokov to Véra in Russian on the front endpaper on the occasion of their 43rd wedding anniversary: Here is the tenderest of butterﬂ ies worthy of the anniversary.

V. 1925–68 — the dates indicate the span of their marriage. This book is adorned with a large, elaborate pencil butterﬂ y, meticulously colored in blue with red, orange, purple, and yellow highlights, named Charaxes verae Nabokov (female) and signed: Montreux, Vaud 15.iv.68. Nabokov wrote for Véra ﬁ ve times in red ink in various positions on the dust-jacket, labeled the spine with his Cyrillic initials and Vé.

According to Kurt Johnson, “the genus Charaxes is the well-known African and Indo-Australian genus of spectacularly colored butterﬂ ies of the Brushfoot family.

All exotic collections have Charaxes and they are very popular among collectors as ‘wow-bugs.’” Here Nabokov has combined aspects of at least three different groups of this genus, taking arched tails from one, the blue col ors of another and the yellow margins from a third. “In nature,” Johnson comments, “the broad blue basal colors and the yellow marginal colors occur in different groups of Charaxes, not together. Nabokov’s magniﬁ cent Charaxes verae apparently illustrates how

15 This and the immediately following entomological commentary by Kurt Johnson have been provided specially for the Horowitz catalogue.

Nabokov would have imagined these bold colors aligned side by side.” In this edition Véra notes one change on the dedication page and Nabokov makes twenty six minor revisions to wording, spelling, and spacing throughout (for example,

“eighteenth” to seventeenth; “dinner” to lunch; “octavos” to twelve-line poems;

“for” to during). A comparison of these corrections with those made earlier in the Putnam edition reveals that two suggested changes have been ignored and three were made by hand along with an addi tional twenty changes noted for later editions. This corrected copy, docketed in pencil on the cover and front end paper, was offered in the Horowitz catalogue for $35,000.

The third and the last copy of The Gift (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1963, Lot 77,

$15,000) in this collection is less remarkable for its contents (although its front endpaper ﬁ lled with a list of misprints and mistranslations, along with some interesting word substitutions — crude for “disingenuous,” for example) than for a loosely inserted index card. This index card bears more of Nabokov’s notes on the text, corresponding to a series of X’s and check-marks found throughout the book, concerning the temporal struc ture of the novel and the sequence of events, identifying speciﬁ c dates and years in which the narrative develops.

The second Russian edition of Dar (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1975; printed in blue cloth; 1000 copies) belonging to Nabokov incorporates approximately ﬁ fty

[Ill. 1-28] Th is 1963 fi rst English edition of Th e Gift was inscribed by Nabokov to his wife on the occasion of their wed ding anniversary

corrections to the ﬁ rst edition of the complete text as published in 1952 by New York’s Chekhov Publishing House. A presentation copy, inscribed to Véra on the ﬁ rst blank: For you my DAR, my darling [the last letter “g” is drawn to resemble the sign of Venus — ♀]/from V./Montreux/Xmas/1975. The inscription is complete with the detailed tropical Brushfoot in proﬁ le, drawn in blue ink and colored in red, blues, purple, orange, and brown, named Verochka verochka. With fourteen marginal lines and ticks in pencil (two of them noted by either Nabokov or Véra on the title page) this edition had been appraised at $30,000.¹⁶

The same bookseller arranged the sale of the Morris and Alison Bishop collection of Vladimir Nabokov in 1999. It was accompanied by a handsome miniature catalogue, reproducing the texts of inscriptions and one photograph

16 The total amount expected from the sale was $3,395.000, with editions of The Gift expected to gross $237,500 (hypothetically comprising 6.8% of the entire collection).

Items 71, 73 and 77 from the catalogue were purchased by the Cornell University library; no. 74 by a private collector in New York; lots 72, 75, and 78 went back to Dmitri Nabokov, who presumably withdrew them to his private collection. Mr. Horowitz declined to comment on whether Cornell and the private buyer paid the prices as listed in catalogue.

[Ill. 1-29] Author’s 1975 Christmas present to his wife, drawing on the second Russian-language edition

of Th e Gift

on the frontispiece. Morris Bishop was a professor of comparative literature at Cornell University, and befriended the Nabokovs during the writer’s tenure there.

Nabokov presented and autographed many books for the Bishops, including The Gift. Part of the collection on sale, the novel in G. P. Putnam’s Sons ﬁ rst edition (1963) once owned by Morris and Alison, was advertised for $25,000 (and was still available for sale a decade later). Originally sold for $5.95 per volume, it was issued in black cloth with a dust-jacket. The Bishops’ presentation copy is inscribed on the half-title in pencil with Nabokov’s hand-drawn chess-pieces:

for the [drawing of two bishops] from Vladimir Nabokov. April 2, 1964, Ithaca,

NY, with two butterﬂ ies and their shadows, and this annotation: corrected: two misprints on p. 79/one misprint on p. 254.

The most recent major sale of Vladimir Nabokov archive materials was arranged as an open auction by Tajan, one of the top three auction ﬁ rms operating in France, in May of 2004. The Tajan Nabokov auction consisted of over 100 volumes and 30 titles, including ﬁ ve editions of The Gift (lots 22-26), including versions in Russian and French. Some of these items contain invaluable data regarding Nabokov’s editing process and will be instrumental in establishing the deﬁ nitive text of the novel for a variorum edition. For example, Nabokov’s personal copy of the 1952 edition of the novel issued by the Chekhov publishing house (one of the six books sent to him as part of the honorarium) is peppered with Nabokov’s remarks for Dmitri in preparation for his translation. Some of these preliminary suggestions were later revised, probably by the author himself, as in the case of Fyodor’s poem (all fragments of Fyodor’s poetic juvenilia were translated for the English-language edition by Nabokov himself). In the original the poem reads:

“ . . . А потом, —

когда меняется картина, и в детской сумрачно горит рождественская скарлатина или пасхальный дифтерит, — съезжать по блещущему ломко, преувеличенному льду

в полутропическом каком-то, полутаврическом саду . . . ”

In the margin of page 27 of the Russian edition Nabokov sketches Fyodor’s poem in English (reproduced on the left). In the ofﬁ cial printed edition of the English translation the same poem looks slightly differently (reproduced on the right):

“And when the picture exchanges, and darkly in the nursery glows

a blend of Christmastide and

scarlet fever

or Easter and diphtheria — to ride down bright and brittle exaggerated slopes of ice in what is half a tropical mirage and half the city’s Taurid gardens . . . ”

One rocketed down the bright, brittle, Exaggerated ice hill

In a kind of half-tropical, Half-Tavricheski park” (G20)

The edition containing the poem’s draft was put on sale for 12,000 Euro (lot 22, Dar. New York: Izdatel’stvo imeni Chekhova, 1952). The dedication in Russian reads as follows: “Mitiushe, luchshemu moemu perevodchiku, ot V.

Nabokova. Sent[iabr’], 1959. N.Y.C. vid na river” (For Mitiusha [to Dmitri], my best translator, from V. Nabokov. Sept., 1959. New York, view of the river).

The second edition of The Gift (New York: G P. Putnam’s Sons, 1963) appears to be the same lot 72 that had been offered a few years earlier in New York and was later withdrawn by Dmitri Nabokov. Although the selling price was estimated at twice the amount of the Russian-language version in the same auction, its price dropped slightly compared to the earlier unsuccessful public bid. The book is tagged at 30,000 Euro now ($35,406 compared to unsold $40,000 in 1999).

The third American pocket format edition of The Gift (lot 24 in Tajan’s catalogue) was modestly estimated at 3,000 Euro. This item has annotations handwritten by both Vladimir and his wife. It is described as having typographical corrections in pencil on about thirty pages, a list of references to the proofread pages at the back cover, and a loose page from a notebook. This sheet contains a drawing representing a stylized head wearing a hat with broad brim.

Even more affordable was the ﬁ rst British pocket format edition of the novel (lot 25; 2,500 Euro). The cover design reproduces Dmitri Nabokov’s color drawing. This edition has typographical corrections on approximately 75 pages, with a list of references to the proofread pages entitled: “Correction of misprints (Feb. 1972) for next edition” (black pencil and red pencil, page 1).

The last edition of The Gift included in the 2004 auction was the French edition of the novel translated from English by Raymond Girard, with the exception of the poems rendered by the author himself (Paris: Gallimard, 1967; lot 26; 3,000 Euro).

This book, one of the 36 numbered copies printed on pure vellum Lafuma-Navarre

paper, has a few corrections and an ex libris label printed on the back cover.

The Tajan auction, except for a few items, was sold to various private collections, most from France and Switzerland, reportedly for nearly

$750,000, a lower price than anticipated (Zanganeh). Dmitri Nabokov later admitted that “the Tajan auction was remarkably unprofessional and poorly prepared.”¹⁷

The inscribed and lepidopterized copy of the novel that appeared on the market most recently is a 1952 Chekhov Dar that was presented to Véra Nabokov’s sister, Sonia Slonim. The book still has the original printed wrappers and also contains (along with Slonim’s signature in ink), the presentation inscription with a butterﬂ y drawing on the front ﬂ yleaf

in pencil and a small sketch of a ﬂ ower beneath. At Christie’s it was auctioned for $10,000 (estimated $10,000-15,000) on December 4, 2009, the same day when the 138 penciled index cards comprising the manuscript of Nabokov’s last unﬁ nished novel, The Original of Laura, failed to sell.

The last substantial group of books and manuscripts to come directly from Nabokov’s family was scheduled for sale at Christie’s on June 13, 2011. To draw the bidders in Dmitri Nabokov and Christie’s decided to start out low (at about half what they would get at retail, according to collector and bibliographer Michael Juliar’s estimate, who called it “an intriguing situation”). This strategy

17 In addition, Dmitri Nabokov shares his thoughts on rarity and value of his Father’s editions:

Im Dokument keys to (Seite 88-99)