Ada, or Ardor

A Family Chronicle

Preview

Failed to add items

Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.

Add to basket failed.

Please try again later

Add to wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Remove from wishlist failed.

Please try again later

Adding to library failed

Please try again

Follow podcast failed

Unfollow podcast failed

Prime Member Exclusive

3 Months Free

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Get this deal

Offer ends on 15 July 2026 at 11:59 BST.

More purchase options

Ada, or Ardor

By: Vladimir Nabokov

Narrated by: Arthur Morey

Get this deal

£5.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.

Buy Now for £19.78

Published two weeks after Vladimir Nabokov’s seventieth birthday, Ada, or Ardor is one of his greatest masterpieces, the glorious culmination of his career as a novelist. It tells a love story troubled by incest, but it is also at once a fairy tale, epic, philosophical treatise on the nature of time, parody of the history of the novel, and erotic catalogue. Ada, or Ardor is no less than the supreme work of an imagination at white heat. This is the first American edition to include the extensive and ingeniously sardonic appendix by the author, written under the anagrammatic pseudonym Vivian Darkbloom. One of the twentieth century’s master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.

Vladimir NabokovArthur MoreyBrilliance Audio

Classics

Genre Fiction

Literary Fiction

Psychological

Fiction

Russia

Witty

Classics Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Psychological Fiction Russia Witty

Critic reviews

“Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically.” (John Updike)

Most relevant

What did you like best about Ada, or Ardor? What did you like least?

It`s a brilliantly imagined fictitious world with its own history, culture and inventions. The characters are not especially sympathetic but the reader is drawn into their strange universe and views their fascinating lives up close.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Ada, or Ardor?

There is a scene by the swimming pool at the beginning of the second fateful summer when the protagonist, Van, is witness to his beloved`s tangled relationships with three different men yet fails to penetrate the truth of her infidelity despite his forensic interrogation.

Did Arthur Morey do a good job differentiating each of the characters? How?

He did quite well, subtly modulating his tones to adapt to male and female characters.

Was Ada, or Ardor worth the listening time?

Yes, it is a long novel but the narrative accelerates throughout the book.

Any additional comments?

Personally, I found it harder to appreciate Nabokov`s verbal dexterity aurally; I think one needs to see the words on the page to understand some of his puns and wordplay.