Carolyn Kunin [ to
JM's "We know VN was disappointed after he realized
Fitzgerald's was not true to the original poems."] In this matter I have to say Nabokov
was extremely foolish. He would throw away the Fitzgerald Rubaiyat![...] Re:
Eberthella Hurley: Since I have just recently embarked on my first assay at
reading Thomas Hardy, I never would have noticed before that this may be a
reference to Hardy's Ethelberta}.
JM: Good point concerning Hardy, for he'd already
been referred to in connection to "stillicide".
I can imagine VN's chuckle with the wealth of associations he was aware of
( it will be almost impossible to know which was decisive): bacilli and doctors,
Eberth and John Ray...King Aethelbert,
Hardy's Ethelberta...