The original publication of "A Guide to Berlin" (as "Putevoditel' po Berlinu") in a Russian-language newspaper for the Russian expatriate community in Berlin virtually guaranteed that Nabokov's fourteenth published story would receive little initial critical attention. By 1930, however, Nabokov's first three novels— Mashenka, Korol', dama, valet, and Zashchita Luzhina—had established Nabokov's literary reputation, and he decided to gather his early stories into the collection Vozvrashchenie Chorba (1929, translated as The Return of Chorb). Writing to a friend in 1930, Nabokov described "A Guide to Berlin" as the best story in the collection, but contemporary reviewers preferred the title story, written in the same year as "A Guide to Berlin," about the loss of a lover. As Nabokov's reputation grew with the publication of such works as Priglashenie na Kazn' (1938, Invitation to a Beheading) and Lolita (1955), critics continued to ignore "A Guide to Berlin" in favor...