Speak, Memory  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Speak, Memory is an autobiographical memoir by writer Vladimir Nabokov.

Chapters

The chapters were individually published as follows—in the New Yorker, unless otherwise indicated:

• "Mademoiselle O" (Chapter Five), published first in French in Mesures in 1936, portrays his French-speaking Swiss governess, Mademoiselle Cécile Miauton, who arrived in the winter of 1906. In English, it was first published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1943, and included in the Nine Stories collection (1947) as well as in Nabokov's Dozen (1958) and the posthumous The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov.
• "Portrait of My Uncle" (Chapter Three), 1948, gives an account of his ancestors as well as his uncle "Ruka". Nabokov describes that in 1916 he inherited "what would amount nowadays to a couple of million dollars" and the estate Rozhdestveno, next to Vyra, from his uncle, but lost it all in the revolution.
• "My English Education" (Chapter Four), 1948, presents the houses at Vyra and St. Petersburg and some of his educators.
• "Butterflies" (Chapter Six), 1948, introduces a lifelong passion of Nabokov's.
• "Colette" (Chapter Seven), 1948, remembers a 1909 family vacation at Biarritz where he met a nine-year old girl whose real name was Claude Deprès. As "First Love" the story is also included in Nabokov's Dozen.
• "My Russian Education" (Chapter Nine), 1948, depicts his father.
• "Curtain-Raiser" (Chapter Ten), 1949, describes the end of boyhood.
• "Portrait of My Mother" (Chapter Two), 1949, also discusses his synesthesia.
• "Tamara" (Chapter Twelve), 1949, describes a love affair that took place when he was seventeen, she sixteen. Her real name was Valentina Shulgina.<ref name="Field"/>
• "First Poem" (Chapter Eleven), 1949, published in Partisan Review, analyzes Nabokov's first attempt at poetry.
• "Lantern Slides" (Chapter Eight), 1950, recalls various educators and their methods.
• "Perfect Past" (Chapter One), 1950, contains early childhood memories including the Russo-Japanese war.
• "Gardens and Parks" (Chapter Fifteen), 1950, is a recollection of their journey directed more personally to Véra.
• "Lodgings in Trinity Lane" (Chapter Thirteen), 1951, published in Harper's Magazine, describes his time at Cambridge and talks about his brothers.
• "Exile" (Chapter Fourteen), 1951, published in Partisan Review, relates his life as an émigré and includes a chess problem.