The Defence [Defense].

London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1964. First edition of this early Nabokov novel, which tells the tragic story of a man destroyed by his own genius and of the hopeless efforts of the wife who loves him to save him from himself. Octavo, original cloth. Fine in a near fine price-clipped dust jacket. Jacket design by John Curtis. Uncommon in the original dust jacket. Nabokov's third novel, The Defense, is a chilling story of obsession and madness. As a young boy, Luzhin was unattractive, distracted, withdrawn, sullen--an enigma to his parents and an object of ridicule to his classmates. He takes up chess as a refuge from the anxiety of his everyday life. His talent is prodigious and he rises to the rank of grandmaster--but at a cost: in Luzhin' s obsessive mind, the game of chess gradually supplants the world of reality. His own world falls apart during a crucial championship match, when the intricate defense he has devised withers under his opponent's unexpected and unpredictable lines of assault.