No marriage of a major twentiethcentury writer lasted longer than Vladimir Nabokovs Vra Slonim shared his delight at the enchantment of lifes trifles and literatures treasures and he rated her as having the best and quickest sense of humour of any woman he had met From their meeting in 1921 Vladimirs letters to his beloved Vra form a narrative arc that tells a fortysix yearlong love story and they are memorable in their entirety Almost always playful romantic and pithy the letters tell us much about the man and the writer we see that Vladimir observed everything from animals faces speech and landscapes with genuine fascination