Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) was a multilingual Russian-American novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist. He also made contributions to entomology and had an interest in chess problems. Nabokov's “Lolita” (1955) is frequently cited as among his most important novels and is his most widely known, exhibiting the love of intricate word play and descriptive detail that characterized all his works. The novel was ranked at #4 in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels.
