- Softcover
- Used

Seller: World of Books Inc, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.World of Books Inc
AbeBooks seller since March 23, 2026
Condition: Used - Very good
£ 11.56
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Pnin is a professor of Russian at an American college who takes the wrong train to deliver a lecture in a language he cannot master. Pnin is a tireless lover who writes to his treacherous Liza: A genius needs to keep so much in store, and thus cannot offer you the whole of himself as I do. Pnin is the focal point of subtle academic conspiracies he cannot begin to comprehend, yet he stages a faculty party to end all faculty parties. One of the twentieth century s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977. Hilariously funny and of a sadness. Graham Greene.
Seller Inventory # CIN0679723412VG
- Title
- Pnin
- Author
- Vladimir Nabokov
- Publisher
- Random House USA Inc
- Publication year
- 1989
- Condition
- Very Good
- Binding
- Paperback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0679723412
- ISBN 13
- 9780679723417
"Fun and satire are just the beginning of the rewards of this novel. Generous, bewildered Pnin, that most kindly and impractical of men, wins our affection and respect." --Chicago Tribune
Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian émigré precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunder-standings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator.
Initially an almost grotesquely comic figure, Pnin gradually grows in stature by contrast with those who laugh at him. Whether taking the wrong train to deliver a lecture in a language he has not mastered or throwing a faculty party during which he learns he is losing his job, the gently preposterous hero of this enchanting novel evokes the reader's deepest protective instinct.
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World of Books Inc
Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
AbeBooks seller since March 23, 2026
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| Item | 4 to 12 business days | 3 to 6 business days |
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Founded in 2002, World of Books is a leading online destination for buying and selling both preloved and new books, committed to making sustainable reading accessible to all. With a mission to help people read more and waste less, World of Books offers a huge range of affordable, high-quality books — giving both new and preloved titles a second life. The company also operates World of Books – Sell Your Books, an easy-to-use platform that allows customers to trade in unwanted books for cash, helping to keep books in circulation while promoting sustainability. As a Certified B Corp, World of Books is driven by a vision to become the world’s largest and most sustainable dedicated online bookstore. The company measures its success through the positive environmental impact it creates, the value it provides to customers, and its ability to operate profitably while supporting its sustainable mission …
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SBYB, Inc.
900 Knell Road
Montgomery, IL U.S.A. 60538
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