Despair

Author: Nabokov, Vladimir

Classic fiction (pre c 1945)

Published on 30 November 2000 by Penguin Books Ltd (Penguin Classics) in the United Kingdom as part of 'the Penguin Modern Classics' series.

Paperback | 176 pages
198 x 131 x 11 | 136g

'A work of rapture - jolting, hilarious and incredibly racy' Martin Amis, The TimesSelf-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his own personality, Hermann Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. But then a chance meeting with Felix, a man he believes to be his double, reveals a frightening 'split' in Hermann's nature. Convinced that he has found his doppelganger, Hermann uses this discovery to weave a money-making plan that leads to disguise, betrayal and eventually murder. Filled with impudent, startling humour, and dominated by the egotistical and scornful figure of a killer who thinks himself an artist, Despair takes us into a deranged world of doubles and illusions, where nothing is quite as it seems.