The Wood-Sprite

The Wood-Sprite is a story by Vladimir Nabokov, originally published in Russian in 1921. It was his first published story.

Summary

The story is told in first-person narration and recounts the narrator's experience when he was visited, at his desk, by a "hunched, gray" wood-sprite, "powdered with the pollen of the frosty, starry night." The creature tells of his own exile from Russia and the hardships he has endured as a result. After a candle blows out, the narrator turns on the light only to be left alone with a "subtle scent in the room, of birch, of humid moss..."^[1]

References

^ Nabokov, Vladimir (2008). The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov. Vintage Books. p. 3-5.

Vladimir Nabokov (works)

Novels

Russian	Mary King, Queen, Knave The Defense The Eye Glory Laughter in the Dark Despair Invitation to a Beheading The Gift The Enchanter
English	The Real Life of Sebastian Knight Bend Sinister Lolita Pnin Pale Fire Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle Transparent Things Look at the Harlequins! The Original of Laura

Short stories

Russian	"The Wood-Sprite" "Sounds" "A Matter of Chance" "Details of a Sunset" "Bachmann" "The Return of Chorb" "A Guide to Berlin" "A Nursery Tale" "Razor" "The Passenger" "The Potato Elf" "The Aurelian" "Terra Incognita" "Lips to Lips" "Orache" "Music" "The Leonardo" "Spring in Fialta" "Tyrants Destroyed"
French	"Mademoiselle O"
English	"Signs and Symbols" "That in Aleppo Once..." "The Vane Sisters"
Collections	Nine Stories Spring in Fialta and other stories Speak, Memory Nabokov's Dozen Nabokov's Quartet Nabokov's Congeries "Cloud, Castle, Lake" A Russian Beauty and Other Stories Tyrants Destroyed and Other Stories Details of a Sunset and Other Stories The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov