SOURCE: “The Women Behind the Wheel,” in Literary Review, July, 1999, p. 456

In the following review of Stacy Schiff's biography of Vera Nabokov, Maddox outlines the relationship between the Nabokovs, and its significance for Nabokov's career as a writer.

When considering the wives of twentieth-century artists, the line between muse and typist can be hard to find. Ditto chauffeur. Vladimir Nabokov could neither drive nor type, nor remember a telephone number. His beautiful, clever, capable, devoted Véra did it all for him and gave his lectures, too, when he was indisposed. She helped him chase, catch and classify butterflies. She shared his long exile, as he went from Berlin to Paris to American academia to Switzerland, where they ended their days. He dedicated all his books to her.

Véra Slonim Nabokov (born in St Petersburg in 1902; died in Montreux in 1991) married the writer in Berlin in 1925. She...