First reader …

… Letters to Véra by Vladimir Nabokov, review: 'beauty out of the banal' — Telegraph. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Until Nabokov’s death in 1977, Véra was his lover, wife, the mother of his son, his editor, researcher, translator, administrator, champion, protector and his collaborator. She indulged his passion for the hunting and cataloguing of butterflies. When she filled out her American tax return, she described herself as his assistant. When he decided to burn the manuscript of Lolita, she saved it from the flames. When Nabokov kept a dream diary in the Sixties he recorded one in which he played the piano while Véra turned the pages of the score.