Vladimir Nabokov’s final work — an unfinished manuscript scholars call The Original of Laura — was meant to be destroyed 30 years ago. When Nabokov died in 1977, he left instructions for his heirs to burn the 138 handwritten index cards that made up the rough draft.
But Nabokov’s wife, Vera, couldn’t bear to destroy her husband’s last work, and when she died, the fate of the manuscript fell to her son. Dmitri Nabokov, now 73, is the Russian novelist’s only surviving heir. He says he inherited the problem of whether to honor his father’s wishes or save the literary master’s last written words for posterity.
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