On Searching For Nabokov’s Rarest Paperbacks Across America

Vladimir Nabokov’s first novel, Mashenka, is a rare paperback published in 1971 by Ardis, a small publishing house founded by Carl and Ellendea Proffer. The book features a magenta cover with simple black type and a carriage-and-horseman logo, along with a photo of Nabokov wearing pince-nez glasses. These editions are highly sought after by collectors due to their limited print runs, often just a few hundred copies, and their historical significance. The Proffers started Ardis in Ann Arbor, Michigan, during the Cold War, aiming to publish literature that was banned or unavailable in the Soviet Union, including works by Nabokov, Osip Mandelstam, and Mikhail Bulgakov. The rarity of these paperbacks stems from their small initial print runs and the fact that many were smuggled out of the Soviet Union, making surviving copies extremely valuable today.

Carl and Ellendea Proffer, both scholars of Russian literature, founded Ardis in 1971 after a trip to the Soviet Union where they encountered censored and unpublished works. Their mission was to publish literature that was 'not meant to exist,' including facsimiles of original editions and translations of banned Soviet texts. Ellendea, fluent in Russian, designed the iconic covers herself, often cutting and gluing letters by hand due to limited resources. The name Ardis references Nabokov’s novel Ada or Ardor, symbolizing a paradisiacal place. The Proffers printed books from their bedroom, using a Varityper machine with only five Cyrillic typefaces, which required meticulous manual work, including correcting errors with razor blades. Despite political risks, they smuggled manuscripts out of the Soviet Union, publishing works like Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita in unabridged English translations.

The Proffers collaborated with prominent Soviet writers, including Joseph Brodsky, a Nobel Prize-winning poet exiled from the Soviet Union in 1972. Brodsky’s first poetry collections and critical works were published by Ardis, and the Proffers helped him secure a position at the University of Michigan. Ellendea Proffer’s memoir describes their first meeting with Brodsky in his Leningrad apartment, where he famously spoke on the phone in informal Russian while hosting them. Other notable authors published by Ardis include Sasha Sokolov, whose novel A School for Fools was praised by Nabokov himself. The Proffers’ work extended beyond literature, as they also supported dissident artists and intellectuals during a politically tense era, despite Ardis’s stated apolitical stance.

Ardis operated for 13 years under the Proffers, publishing over 100 books, including facsimiles of Nabokov’s novels and uncensored Soviet poetry. In 1979, the Soviet government banned Ardis after they published Metropol, an anthology of Soviet poets smuggled out of the country. Carl Proffer died from colon cancer in 1984 at age 46, leaving Ellendea to continue running Ardis alone for 18 more years. The publishing house’s corporate afterlife began in 2002 when Overlook Press acquired rights to some of its titles, but its legacy endures through collectors hunting down its rare editions. These paperbacks, often priced in the high three or four figures, are now prized by enthusiasts who scour used bookstores and online marketplaces like eBay for a chance encounter with a surviving copy.