Duchessa Anastasia sneaks away from the family mansion at night in 18th Century Venezia during Carnevale. Giorgio, her cavalier servente, has feelings for her. Anastasia accepts the esteemed courtier, Leandro’s marriage proposal though he fails to disclose an important detail about himself. The royal guards seize Giorgio at the d’Alessi manor. The Crown accuses Giorgio of treason. Capriana, a servant, knows how Giorgio was framed. A conspirator intends to murder her. Anastasia and Leandro investigate Giorgio’s allegations before they are wed. The duchessa is surprised as to whom it leads.

Published two weeks after his seventieth birthday, Ada, or Ardor is one of Nabokov's greatest masterpieces, the glorious culmination of his career as a novelist. It tells a love story troubled by incest. But more: it is also at once a fairy tale, epic, philosophical treatise on the nature of time, parody of the history of the novel, and erotic catalogue. Ada, or Ardor is no less than the superb work of an imagination at white heat. This is the first American edition to include the extensive and ingeniously sardonic appendix by the author, written under the anagrammatic pseudonym Vivian Darkbloom.