'Lolita' novelist's last work to be published

London, Apr 18 (ANI): An unfinished final work by Vladimir Nabokov, the author of 'Lolita', is to be published by Penguin later this year.

The Russian-born American novelist wrote The Original of Laura on 138 index cards, each of which will be reproduced with a transcript of their text on the facing page.

Nabokov left instructions after his death in 1977 that the unfinished work be destroyed. His son took the decision to publish last year.

Dimitri Nabokov apparently did so because his father also wanted Lolita, his most well known book, to be burned, reports The Telegraph.

According to The Bookseller magazine, Alexis Kirschbaum, editor at Penguin Classics, bought the book and rights to continue publishing the Nabakov backlist in a six-figure deal.

The Original of Laura will be published as a Penguin Classics hardback on November 3, priced 25 pounds.

It is narrated by a man infatuated with his promiscuous wife, thinking back to the start of his obsession when they were youths.

Kirschbaum, who described the book as both dark and comic, said: "In this novel he is also very interested in psychology and in what it means to hate yourself and want to disappear." (ANI)