These four plays and the two essays on drama that accompany them were written in Russian during Nabokov's emigre years in Germany and France, before his published work in English earned him his reputation as a supreme magician of language. As his son, Dmitri, reveals in the introduction, many of the Nabokovian themes that were to dazzle future generations of readers made their first appearance in these works. The title play, a five-act drama portraying the illusory hopes of the emigre community: The Event, a "dramatic comedy" set in a pre-Revolutionary Russian town: two one-act plays cast in blank verse (The Grand-dad and The Pole): and Nabokov's two essays on drama comprise an enlightening presentation of the early work of a literary genius.