The Fiction Desk Blog

This week’s literary news includes the publication of an unfinished Nabokov novel, a computer game based on the life and work of the Brontës, and a bizarre mistake in a new biography.

Unfinished Nabokov novel to be published

According to the New York Times, the late Vladimir Nabokov’s son Dmitri intends to publish the author’s unfinished novel The Original of Laura, which currently only exists as typewritten notes on fifty index cards.

Although Nabokov had forbidden the book’s publication, his son says: “I’m a loyal son and thought long and seriously about it. Then my father appeared before me and said with an ironic grin: ‘You’re stuck in a right old mess. Just go ahead and publish.’ ” Sounds like a handy sort of apparition to me.

Full article on the NY Times here (you may need to login).

A Brontë computer game?

The Guardian reports on the development of a new computer game, based on the life and work of the Brontë sisters. According to the designer’s website, it’s “a dark literary mystery in which fiction and history are blurred”.

The game, which will be a point-and-click adventure in the style of the old LucasArts classics, is being developed by Brighton-based Really Fancy Games.

Biographer confused by novel

There are some red faces at Bloomsbury, according to a story on the BBC News website. Apparently their new biography of Madame de Maintenon, mistress of Louis XIV, has been delayed after a rather severe mistake was discovered. It seems that author Veronica Buckley used a ‘Secret Journal of Louis XIV’ as one of her sources. Unfortunately, said journal doesn’t actually exist; the book she was quoting from was a work of fiction, written by French historian François Bluche, and published in 1998. More on this story in the Guardian.