Poems and Problems
New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1970. 1st Edition. Octavo, publisher's black cloth, spine gilt, upper board blindstamped, charcoal endpapers, top edge stained in red, original printed dust jacket.
"Problems are the poetry of chess. They demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, harmony, conciseness, complexity, and splendid insincerity." First edition of Russian-American writer and passionate chess player Vladimir Nabokov's collection of poetry and problems. While his reputation as a major literary figure rests on his career as a prose stylist, Nabokov wrote poems from his teenage years on (considering the genre his "first love"), with his earliest collection privately published in 1916. A small yet notable aspect of his oeuvre, the poems Nabokov wrote in his second language were predominantly composed while he was in the US between 1941 and 1957. This collection comprises thirty-nine of his Russian poems with his own English translations on the facing pages, fourteen poems originally written in English, and eighteen chess problems he composed with their solutions. With an introduction and bibliography. Stated first printing to copyright page; author photo to lower panel of dust jacket by Philippe Halsman, featuring Nabokov in a game with his wife Véra. Fine in unclipped dust jacket. Item #13270
$275.00