Maschenka. Roman. Deutsch von Klaus Birkenhauer.

Notes

The first edition of this translation of Nabokov's first novel, published in Russian in 1926 as Машенька. It was first translated into German in 1928 under the title Sie Kommt, Kommt Sie? but this translation was a new one, translated from the 1970 English translation of Michael Glenny and Nabokov himself. This copy bears the red ink stamp of the American Library in Paris's acquisition by donation of Dietrich's library following her death in 1992 but no other signs of library ownership; perhaps the non-English-language material was quickly sorted. The Library's newsletter announcement of the donation mentions Nabokov, in company with Ernest Hemingway and Truman Capote, as an example of the Dietrich's favoured authors. Should she have read Lolita she would have seen the title-character's mother's facial features described rather disparagingly as 'a weak solution of Marlene Dietrich', while another of Dolores Haze's diminutive names, Lola, recalls Dietrich's star-making role in Der Blaue Engel.