Nabokov's Compliments

To: Katharine A. White

[Editor, New Yorker Magazine]

ALS, I p. Bryn Mawr College

Cambridge Mass.

i-I-1946

Dear Mrs. White:

Thanks for your charming letter. I do have a story for you--but it is still in my head; quite complete, however; ready to emerge; the pattern showing through the wingcases of the pupa. I shall write it as soon as I get rid of my novel, i.e. in a couple of months.

Rebecca West's account of the trial of J.* was admirable. So was Irwin Shaw** in the last issue. So was a very funny critique by Gibbs*** (mimicking a very good story by Thurber).

I think I shall come to N. Y. at the end of next week.

Very sincerely yours,
V. Nabokov

I (and my son) enjoyed hugely your husband's last book. I have admired his art ever since his red barn cast that blue shadow (in Harper's?)

* "A Reporter at Large: The Crown versus William Joyce" (29 Sept. 1945)

** "A Reporter at Large: Stuff of Dreams" (5 Jan. 1946)

*** Wolcott Gibbs, "Outline of Victoria" (15 Dec. 1945)

-from Vladimir Nabokov Selected Letters 1940-1977 edited by Dimitri Nabokov and Matthew J. Bruccoli (San Diego: Harcourt, Brace and Jovanovich, 1989) p.65.