Dear List,

Thanks to Mary for her note about Myers and Bend Sinister.  Very
interesting! I'm also looking forward to reading Don's essay about de la
Mare, as that's a connection I've been wanting to better understand. 

On a completely new topic, I just ran across a fascinating article in the
2002 Russian Review: Mirror Writing: The Literary Traces of the Zertsalo,
by Julia Bekman Chedaga.  Chedaga begins by pointing to an odd object--a
zertsalo--noted in a passage from Gogol. The zertsalo is sometimes
translated a "mirror of law." According to Chedago, the object itself was
a three-sided prism displaying under glass, on each side, the text of a
different Petrine decree--the three cornerstones of Russian law. In the
next section of the essay, the author nicely traces how the zertsalo fits
into the tradition of didactic medieval "mirror books"--the Speculum
Regale [MR: noted in PF], the German "Mirror for Princes," etc..   Long
story short, the zertsalo is a kind of moral mirror, a metaphorical object.

None of this directly ties to VN, though the discussion of mirrors and
glass-making in the article surely made me think of him.  One footnote,
however, did strike my interest.  Chedaga notes that "[t]he protagonist of
V. I. Lukin's didactic comedy, Shchepetil'nik (1765)... is a self-admitted
purveyor of trifles who deals in many an optical device (lorgnette,
telescope, and mirror) that...shows in a true light the foibles of human
nature to would-be customers."  I did a bit of checking, and it turns out
that Lukin's play is an adapted version (a mirror text?) of the English
writer Robert Dodsley's play "The Toy Shop."  Dodsley on a whim sent his
play to Alexander Pope, who liked it so much that he passed it along to
one of his theater friends, and it became something of a hit. (Do a Google
Books search on Dodsley & Trifles if you want to read it). The money
Dodsley made from the play allowed him to open a bookshop, and he went on
to publish many of Samuel Johnson's works and Thomas Gray's Elegy.

The connections to Pope and Johnson could certainly relate to PF, but I'm
most interested in Lukin, since John Shade's mother was Caroline Lukin.
Also, I recall Don Johnson noting a while back an article by E.A. Popova
called "Episode of the Lorgnette," wherein she traces that object through
several Nabokov texts.  To the Russian lit experts among us, I'd like to
know how prominent a writer V.I. Lukin was.  Is it likely Nabokov knew his
specific works and reputation?  Could he have read Shchepetil'nik, and is
it likely he would have known that Dodsley was the original source for the
play? 

Thanks in advance,
Matt Roth

P.S. On the British side, there is an author named James Lukin who
published wonderful detailed books on how to make clockwork toys.

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