Publication of the fragment Solus Rex (from an unfinished novel) in Sovremennye zapiski no. 70.
The Nabokovs leave for the United States on board the Champlain. VN begins his lepidopteral studies at the Museum of Natural History in New York. VN meets Edmund Wilson, who will introduce him to The New Yorker.

1941

Publication of VN’s fist English novel, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (Norfolk, CT, New Directions).

1942

Named researcher at Harvard University’s Musuem of Coparative Zoology. Teaches Russian literature three days a week at Wellesley College.
Second fragment from Solus Rex, titled Ultima Thule, published in Novyi zhurnal no. 1, New York.

1944

Publication of Nikolai Gogol (Norfolk, CT: New Directions).
Publication of Three Russian Poets, translations of Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tiutchev (Norfolk, CT: New Directions). (Listen to Nabokov read his English translation of Tiutchev's poem "Silentium.")

1945

VN and Véra become American citizens.

1947

Publication of Bend Sinister (New York: Holt).
Publication of Nine Stories, translations from the Russian and some composed in English (Norfolk, Direction Two).

1948

VN is named professor of Russian and European Literature at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

1951

Publication of Conclusive Evidence (New York: Harper).

1955

Lolita, refused by four American publishers, is published in Paris by Olympia Press.

1956

Publication of Vesna v Fial’te (14 stories in Russian), New York: Chekhov.

1957

Publication of Pnin (Garden City, NY: Doubleday).
An excerpt from Lolita published in the Anchor Review.

1958

Publication of DN’s and VN’s translation of Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time (Garden City, NY: Doubleday).
Publication of Nabokov’s Dozen (Garden City, NY: Doubleday).
Publication of Lolita in the United States (New York: Putnam).

1959

Publication of Poems (Garden City, NY: Doubleday).