The Real Life of Sebastian Knight is the first English novel by Vladimir Nabokov, written from late 1938 to early 1939, and published in 1941 by New Directions Publishers. Nabokov's first major work in English was composed in Paris while the author sat in the bathroom, his valise set across a bidet as a writing desk. Nabokov retreated into the washroom to write. The narrator, V., is absorbed in the composition of his first literary work, a biography of his half-brother the famous Russian-born English novelist, Sebastian Knight . In the course of his quest he tracks down Sebastian's... acquaintances from Cambridge, and interviews friends and acquaintances, including friends Helen Pratt and P.G. Sheldon, the poet Alexis Pan, and the painter Roy Carswell. In the course of his biography V. also reviews Sebastian's books and attempts to refute the views of the "misleading" biography by Knight's former secretary Mr. Goodman, The Tragedy of Sebastian Knight. Goodman maintains that Knight was too aloof and cut off from real life. V.
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