Nabokov at Cornell

In Ithaca, the Nabokovs followed the pattern they had established over the previous twenty years by refusing to put down roots and buy a home. They opted instead for permanent transience, renting one professorial sabbatical home after another.

Morris Bishop, Nabokov's good friend and Chairman of the Department of Romance Languages, recalled that the lives led by Vladimir and Véra were quite different from those of most Cornell faculty because "the Nabokovs, twice fugitives into exile, had no accumulations. Thus they were forced to camp in the homes of faculty members away on sabbaticals and grants. Every year, often every term, they would move."

The Nabokovs arrived in Ithaca on July 1, 1948. They moved into 957 East State Street, the home of a vacationing faculty member, where they remained only until the end of the summer. Five years later, in the late summer of 1953, they would return once again to 957 East State Street. It was here that Nabokov finished Lolita in December of 1953.

View the Previous Item