...Brian Boyd:

"A dystopian fable that sets the individual imagination against a world that denies it, Invitation to a Beheading is the second of Nabokov's masterpieces (the others are The Defense; The Gift; Speak, Memory; Lolita; Pale Fire; Ada). Its plot could not be simpler. On the first page of the novel, Cincinnatus C. is sentenced to death; for nineteen days, not knowing when he will die, he remains in solitary confinement; on the last page, he is beheaded." (Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years, p. 410)