Collected poems (Penguin Books)

Nabokov's masterly "Collected Poems" span the decades of his career, from "Music", written in 1914, to the short, playful "To Vera", composed in 1974. "The University Poem", one of Nabokov's major poetic works, is here in English for the first time: an extraordinary autobiographical poem looking back at his time at Cambridge, with its dinners, girls and memories, it is suffused with rich description, wit and verbal dexterity.

Included too are the surreally comic "A Literary Dinner", the enchanting, "Eve", the wryly humorous "An Evening of Russian Poetry" and a meditation on the act of creation, 'Tolstoy', as well as verse written on America, lepidoptery, sport, love and Nabokov's Russian homeland.

Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) was one of the great writers of the twentieth century, as well as a translator and lepidopterist. His works include "The Luzhin Defense", "The Gift", "Lolita", "Pnin", "Pale Fire" and "Ada or Ardor"; the autobiographical "Speak", "Memory"; and lectures on literature.

All of the fiction and "Speak, Memory" are published in Penguin. Dmitri Nabokov (born in 1934) is one of Vladimir Nabokov's principal translators, from and into four languages.After graduating with honours from Harvard and attending the Longy School of Music, he performed leading bass roles in opera houses in a number of countries.