{"product_id":"2026770001693-secondhand-king-queen-knave","title":"King, Queen, Knave","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition remarks:\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBook: Good                          \u003cbr\u003eJacket: Worn\/faded, no tears\u003cbr\u003ePages: Good                  \u003cbr\u003eMarkings: No markings\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA darkly comic and psychologically acute novel, King, Queen, Knave chronicles the entanglement of three figures — a wealthy merchant, his bored and beautiful wife, and his naive young nephew — in a web of lust, manipulation, and cold-blooded scheming. Originally written in Russian in 1928 and later revised by Nabokov himself for its English translation, the novel presents its characters as near-automata, puppets moved by desire and self-delusion rather than genuine human feeling. With the precision of a chess master, Nabokov constructs an ironic, almost farcical tragedy set against the glittering backdrop of a German resort town, where the gap between surface elegance and moral vacancy is rendered with devastating wit. The prose is cool and stylized, illustrating the author's signature detachment — a god-like authorial gaze that simultaneously mocks and pities its creations. Readers familiar with Nabokov's later masterworks will recognize here the early crystallization of his themes: the unreliability of perception, the cruelty of desire, and the absurdity of human pretension.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Secondhand Stock","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48887874715867,"sku":"2026770001693-SECONDHAND","price":25.0,"currency_code":"AUD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0523\/7646\/9701\/files\/c019538a-d21e-4aaa-b078-6302e7781e60.png?v=1781747339","url":"https:\/\/bookgrocer.com\/products\/2026770001693-secondhand-king-queen-knave","provider":"Book Grocer","version":"1.0","type":"link"}