Gavriel Shapiro is Professor of Comparative and Russian Literature at Cornell University. His major publications include Nikolai Gogol and the Baroque Cultural Heritage (1993), Delicate Markers: Subtexts in Vladimir Nabokov’s “Invitation to a Beheading” (1998), (ed.) Nabokov at Cornell (2003), The Sublime Artist’s Studio: Nabokov and Painting (2009), and The Tender Friendship and the Charm of Perfect Accord: Nabokov and His Father (2014).