Vladimir Nabokov taught at Cornell University from 1948 to 1959. This book examines Nabokov's work and interests durring these years, from his poetry and prose, to criticism of literature and the visual arts, and writings on the humanities and science.

Vladimir Nabokov taught at Cornell University from 1948 to 1959. It was at Cornell that Nabokov composed Lolita and Pnin and conceived Pale Fire. During his Cornell tenure Nabokov also continued his research on lepidoptera, wrote the English and Russian versions of his autobiography, Conclusive Evidence and Drugie Berega, and prepared annotated translations of two pinnacles of Russian literature: The Song of Igor's Campaign and Eugene Onegin. While at Cornell Nabokov also delivered his highly acclaimed lectures on Russian and European literature.

Nabokov at Cornell contains twenty-five chapters by the leading experts on Nabokov. Their subjects range widely from Nabokov's poetry to his prose, from his original fiction to translation and literary scholarship, from literature to visual art, and from the humanities to natural science. The book concludes with a reminiscence of the family's life in Ithaca by Nabokov's son Dmitri.