Vladimir Nabokov, A Bibliography of Criticism
by Dieter E. Zimmer
with additions by Jeff Edmunds

Alperovich, Dina. "Bezumnyi mir Priglasheniia na kazn' V.V. Nabokova ili istoriia bolezni Tsintsinnata TS" ("The Mad World of Invitation to a Beheading or the History of Cincinnatus C's Illness"), Russian Language Journal, LI, nos. 168-170 (1997), pp. 203-214.

Alter, Robert: "Invitation to a Beheading: Nabokov and the art of politics". TriQuarterly (Evanston, IL), 17, Winter 1970, pp. 41-59

Barabtarlo, Gennady. "'That Main Secret Tra-ta-ta Tra-ta-ta tra-ta-'." The Vladimir Nabokov Research Newsletter, Fall 1982, 9, pp. 34-35.

Barabtarlo, Gennady: "Within and Without Cincinnatus' Cell: Reference Gauges in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading". Slavic Review (New York), 49 (3), Fall 1990, pp. 390-397

Barabtarlo, Gennady. "The Informing of the Soul (Invitation to a Beheading)," Zembla, 3/19/2001. (Originally appeared in the author's Aerial View: Essays on Nabokov's Art and Metaphysics [New York, P. Lang, 1993]).

Bitsilli, P.M.: "A Review of Invitation to a Beheading and The Eye". In: A Book of Things about Vladimir Nabokov (ed. Carl R. Proffer). Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1974, pp. 63-69

Blackwell, Stephen H. " Reading and Rupture in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading." Slavic and East European Journal, 1995, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 38-53.

Boegeman, Margaret Byrd: "Invitation to a Beheading and the Many Shades of Kafka". In: Nabokov's Fifth Arc (ed. J.E. Rivers, Charles Nicol). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1982, pp. 105-124

Booker, M. Keith. Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. (Includes extended discussions of Invitation to a Beheading and Bend Sinister.)

Bruckmann, Patricia. "Un Squelette des Ombres." The Vladimir Nabokov Research Newsletter, Spring 1981, 6, pp. 28-30.

Connolly, Julian W. "Nabokov's 'Terra Incognita' and Invitation to a Beheading: The Struggle for Imaginative Freedom." Wiener Slawistischer Almanach 12 (1983), pp. 55-65.

Connolly, Julian W., ed. Invitation to a Beheading: A Critical Companion. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press ; American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages, 1997.

Cooke, Brett; Grinyakin, Alexander. "Nabokov on the Moscow Stage." The Nabokovian, Fall 1990, 25, pp. 22-25. [On the theatrical adaptation of ITAB.]

Cornwell, Neil. The Absurd in Literature (Manchester ; New York: Manchester University Press, 2006). Invitation to a Beheading is discussed on pp. 90-1, 98 (notes 62-5), 145, and 175; the book includes a number of other references to Nabokov.

Davydov, Sergej: "Invitation to a Beheading". In: The Garland Companion to Vladimir Nabokov (ed. Vladimir E. Alexandrov), New York: Garland, 1995, pp. 188-203

Dolinin, Alexander. "Pushkinian Subtexts in Nabokov’s Invitation to a Beheading," Zembla, 9/6/07.

Fitzsimmons, Lorna. "Artistic Subjectivity in Nabokov's The Defense and Invitation to a Beheading." Journal of Evolutionary Psychology (JEP), Pittsburgh, PA. 2000 Mar; 21(1-2): pp. 5-9.

Foster, Ludmila A.: "Nabokov's Gnostic Turpitude: The Surrealistic Vision of reality in Priglasenie na kazn'". In: Mnemozina - Studia litteraria russica in honorem Vsevolod Setchkarev (ed. Joachim T. Baer). München: Fink, 1974, pp. 117-129

Galtseva, Renata; Rodnyanskaya, Irina. "The Obstacle: The Human Being, or the Twentieth Century in the Mirror of Dystopia." South Atlantic Quarterly (Durham, NC), Spring 1991, 90:2, pp. 293-322. [Compares ITAB with works by Platonov and Kafka.]

Grishakova, Marina. "On Some Allusions in V. Nabokov’s Works." The Nabokovian, 43, fall 1999, p. 18-29.

Grishakova, Marina. "O nekotorykh alliusiiakh u V. Nabokova." In Kultura russkoi diaspory: Nabokov-100. Tallinn : TPÜ KIRJASTUS, 2000, p. 119-134.

Grossmith, Robert. "Spiralizing the Circle: The Gnostic Subtext in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading." Essays in Poetics: The Journal of the British Neo-Formalist School (Oxford), Sept. 1987, 12:2, pp. 51-74.

Houk, Guy. "The Spider and the Moth: Nabokov's Priglasenie na kazn' as Epistemological Exhortation." Russian Literature, 18 (1), 1985, p. 31-42.

Hughes, Robert P.: "Notes on the translation of Invitation to a Beheading". TriQuarterly (Evanston, IL), 17, Winter 1970, pp. 284-292

Hyman, Stanley Edgar: "The Handle: Invitation to a Beheading and Bend Sinister". TriQuarterly (Evanston, IL), 17, Winter 1970, pp. 60-71

Kopper, John Matthias, Jr. Family Resemblances. Ph.D., 1986. [On ITAB, Kafka, and Bugaev.]

Johnson, D[onald] Barton: "The Alpha and Omega of Nabokov's Prison-House of Language: Alphabetic Iconicism in Invitation to a Beheading". Russian Literature (Amsterdam), 6, 1978, pp. 347-364

Johnson, D. Barton. "Spatial Modeling and Deixis: Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading." Poetics Today (Durham, NC), Winter 1982, 3:1, pp. 81-98.

Klemtner, Susan Strehle: "To ‘Special Space': Transformation in Invitation to a Beheading". Modern Fiction Studies (Lafayette, IN), 25(3), Autumn 1979, pp. 429-438

Kopper, John M.: "The Prison in Nabokov's Priglasenie: A Place to Have the Time of one's Life". Russian Language Journal, 33 (116), 1979, pp. 144-162

Lebedev, E. "Smert' Tsintsinnata Ts.: Opyt mifologicheskoi interpretatsii romana 'Priglashenie na kazn'' V. Nabokova," in Martynov, G. G. (ed.). Peterburgskie chteniia. St. Petersburg, Russia : Dorn, 1999 (Nabokovskii vestnik ; vyp. 4), pp. 154-159.

Linetskii, Vadim. "Za chto zhe vse-taki kaznili Tsintsinatta Ts?" Oktiabr' 12 (Dec. 1993), pp. 175-179.

Mikulasek, Miroslav. "Gnosticky mytus v evoluci romanu prvni tretiny 20. stoleti: A. Belyj, H. Hesse, V. Nabokov, M. Bulgakov." Slavia: Casopis pro Slovanskou Filologii (Munich), 1993, 62:3, pp. 365-370.

Moynahan, Julian. "A Russian Preface for Nabokov's Beheading." Novel 1 (1967), pp. 12-18.

Oles, Brian Thomas: "Silence and the Ineffable in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading". Nabokov Studies (Los Angeles), 2, 1995, pp. 191-212

Peterson, Dale E.: "Nabokov's Invitation - Literature as Execution". Publications of the Modern Language Association of America PMLA (Menosha, WI), 96 (5), 1981, pp. 824-836

Senderovich, Savely. "Dickens in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beaheading: A Figure of Concealment." Nabokov Studies #3 (1996), pp. 13-32.

Senderovich, Savelii, and Elena Shvarts. "Verbnaia shtuchka. Nabokov i populiarnaia kul'tura. Stat'ia pervaia." Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, No. 24, 1997, pp. 93-110.

Shapiro, Gavriel. "Khristianskie motivy, ikh ikonografiia i simvolika v romane Vladimira Nabokova Priglashenie na kazn." Russian Language Journal 33, no. 116 (1979): 144-62.

Shapiro, Gavriel. "Russkie literaturnye alliuzii v romane Nabokova Priglashenie na kazn'." Russian Literature (Amsterdam), May 15, 1981, 9:4, pp. 369-378.

Shapiro, Gavriel. "Vladimir Nabokov and Dr. Sineokov." The Nabokovian, Fall 1985, 15, pp. 20-22.

Shapiro, Gavriel. "Reministsentsii iz Mertvykh dush v Priglashenii na kazn'." (Reminiscences from Dead Souls in Invitation to a Beheading. In Gogolevskii sbornik, ed. S. A. Goncharov (St. Petersburg: "Obrazovanie," 1994), pp. 175-181.

Shapiro, Gavriel. "Cincinnatus as Solus Rex." The Nabokovian 33 (Fall 1994): 22-24.

Shapiro, Gavriel. "The Salome Motif in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading." Nabokov Studies #3 (1996), pp. 101-122.

Shapiro, Gavriel. Delicate Markers: Subtexts in Vladimir Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading (New York: Peter Lang, 1998) ISBN: 0-8204-39460.

Delicate Markers is the first book-length study of Invitation to a Beheading (1935-36), a masterpiece that has received a great deal of scholarly attention, second only to Lolita among Nabokov's works. Contrary to the prevailing critical practice of interpreting the novel along specific lines, such as political or metaphysical, Shapiro considers its diverse subtexts, the implicit meanings, thereby achieving more multifaceted perspectives. Even though centering on one work from Nabokov's Russian canon, Shapiro demonstrates the complexity of interartistic and cross-cultural ties in the writer's entire oeuvre, which became especially apparent in his "American years."--as posted to NABOKV-L.

Shapiro, Gavriel. "Otgoloski Tiuremnykh dosugov V. D. Nabokova v Priglashenii na kazn." In Vladimir Nabokov-Sirine: Les Années Européennes (Cahiers de l'émigration russe 5), ed. Nora Buhks, 67-75. Paris: Institut d'Éudes Slaves, 1999.

Shapiro, Gavriel. "Several Comments on Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading." The Nabokovian 52 (Spring 2004): 26-29.

Shapiro, Gavriel. "Methods of Control and Power in Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading." In The Imprints of Terror: The Rhetoric of Violence and the Violence of Rhetoric in Modern Russian Culture. In Memoriam Marina Kanevskaya (Wiener Slawistischer Almanach. Sonderband 64), eds. Anna Brodsky, Mark Lipovetsky and Sven Spieker, 167-80. Munich: Institut für Slavische Philologie, 2006.

Shokina, Viktoriia. "Chernyshevskii glazami Nabokova. K 170-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia kritika-demokrata." Nezavisimaia gazeta, 24 avgust 1998.

Stuart, Dabney: "All the Mind's a Stage: A Reading of Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov". The University of Windsor Review (Windsor, Ontario), 4 (1), 1969, pp. 1-24

Sugimoto, K. "V plenu vymysla: Po romanu Nabokova 'Priglashenie na kazn''," in Martynov, G. G. (ed.). Iubileinyi (1899-1999) (Nabokovskii vestnik ; vyp. 5). St. Petersburg, Russia: Dorn, 2000, pp. 47-58.

Tammi, Pekka: "Invitation to a Decoding: Dostoevskij as Subtext in Nabokov's Priglasenie na kazn'". Scando-Slavica (København), 32, 1986, pp. 51-72

Toker, Leona. "Ambiguities in Vladmir Nabokov's Invitation to a Beheading." In Braendlin, Hans P. (ed.), Ambiguities in Literature and Film (Tallahassee: Florida State UP, 1988), pp. 95-103.

Toker, Leona: "'Who was becoming seasick? Cincinnatus': Some Aspects of Nabokov's treatment of the Communist Regime". Cycnos (Nice), 10 (1), 1993, pp. 81-90

Zlochevskaia, A. V. "Traditsii F.M.Dostoevskogo v romane V. Nabokova Priglashenie na kazn'." Filologicheskie nauki (Moscow), 1995, no. 2, pp. 3-12.