Nabokov told his wife to burn his last novel; it sat in a Swiss bank vault for 32 years before their son published it

When Vladimir Nabokov died he was writing The Original of Laura, a novel drafted in pencil on 138 index cards. He asked that the manuscript be destroyed, and told his wife, Véra, to burn it. She did not. For 16 years she considered publishing it and never did. Their son Dmitri later said age, weakness and love explained her delay. When Véra died in 1991 the cards were in a Swiss bank vault. Dmitri became the sole executor. In January 2008 he hinted he might burn the cards. The director of the Nabokov Museum in St Petersburg said turning 75 prompted his decision: after his death no one could legitimately make it. On 17 November 2009 Penguin in the UK and Knopf in the US published the book. Each page reproduced one card with its typed text beneath. The writer Aleksandar Hemon argued it should never have appeared. Gavriel Shapiro of Cornell said Nabokov would have destroyed it himself if he had wanted it destroyed. Dmitri died in 2012^†.