- Nabokov puts our feet on the ground with some particulars about the book, most importantly: it recounts his life between 1903 to 1940.
- It's a collage, one that was published in parts in magazines like The New Yorker and The Atlantic before being assembled into the semi-chronological work it is today.
- The first time the book was published, in 1951, it was called Conclusive Evidence—"conclusive evidence of my having existed." (Foreword.1.5) We don't think anyone could argue.
- Subsequently the book was published as "Speak, Memory" in England, even though Nabokov wanted to call it Speak, Mnemosyne. Luckily his British publishers said old ladies didn't like to read what they couldn't pronounce.
- While writing the book the first time, while living in the U.S., Nabokov didn't have access to family records, so he remembered best he could, and fudged the rest. Subsequently, he got at those documents, and felt the need to revise, revise, revise.
- "Among the anomalies of a memory, whose possessor and victim should never have tried to become an autobiographer, the worst is the inclination to equate in retrospect my age with that of the century." (Foreword.1)
- In other words, he wrote this thing, but he's still not so sure about "memoir" and what it means for the pursuit of history.
- Nabokov discusses references to his life and works outside of the book, and adjustments made for the sake of those who might object, living or dead, which was kind of him.