'On the table glistened a clean sheet of paper, and, distinctly outlined against this whiteness, lay a beautifully sharpened pencil, as long as the life of any man except Cincinnatus...' Invitation to a Beheading takes us into the fantastic prison-world of a man condemned to death. Written in Berlin in 1934, it contains all the surprise, excitement and magical intensity of a work dreamed up in two brief weeks of sustained inspiration. Nabokov described it as 'a violin in a void. The worldling will deem it a trick. Old men will hurriedly turn from it to regional romances and the lives of public figures. No clubwoman will thrill... But... I know a few readers who will jump up, ruffling their hair.'