[4] In the foreword to the English edition Nabokov states that he wrote The Defense in 1929 while he vacationed in Le Boulou ("hunting butterflies") and then finished it in Berlin.

During one of the tournaments, at a resort, he meets a young girl, never named in the novel, whose interest he captures.

Things turn for the worse when he is pitted against Turati, a grandmaster from Italy, in a competition to determine who would face the current world champion.

Eventually, after an encounter with his old chess mentor, Valentinov, Luzhin realizes that he must "abandon the game," as he puts it to his wife (who is desperately trying to communicate with him).

She is initially drawn to the air of mystery that surrounds the chess master and feels compassion for his social ineptitude.

She takes on a motherly role in her marriage with Luzhin, and makes it her occupation to amuse him and keep his mind off of his unhealthy obsession with chess.

As he puts off beginning a novel based on his young son's prodigiousness in chess and the viperous character of Valentinov, he dies.

Valentinov: A confident man with a competent understanding of chess (he creates problems but does not play) who manages Luzhin's career through childhood.

The character of Luzhin is based on Curt von Bardeleben, a chess master Nabokov knew personally.

Nabokov said of this novel: "Of all my Russian books, The Defense contains and diffuses the greatest 'warmth' – which may seem odd seeing how supremely abstract chess is supposed to be."