30 JULY 1977, Page 17

Happy families

Sir: 'All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike.' So Vladimir Nabokov begins his novel Ada, claiming to quote the opening sentence, of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

However, the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations gives the following: Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910): `All happy families resemble each other, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.'

Can your readers explain why Nabokov's translation of his predecessor should so differ from the norm?

Ronald Irving 5 Upper Brook Street, London, W.1.