And Then There Was No One

‘My only pyjama hat! You should have taken the other turn to the lunatic asylum.’

‘If I have made mistake, the apologize is terrific. But if this is not the lunatic asylum what are you doing here, my esteemed friend?’

FRANK RICHARDS, Billy Bunter’s Double

As I peered, stripped naked and traversed by opaline rays, into another, far deeper mirror, I saw the whole vista of my Russian books and was satisfied and even thrilled by what I saw: Tamara, my first novel (1925): a girl at sunrise in the mist of an orchard. A grandmaster betrayed in Pawn Takes Queen. Plenilune, a moonburst of verse. Camera Lucida, the spy’s mocking eye among the meek blind. The Red Top Hat of decapitation in a country of total injustice. And my best in the series: young poet writes prose on a Dare.

VLADIMIR NABOKOV, Look at the Harlequins!