NABOKOV, Vladimir. Lolita. Paris: The Olympia Press, 1955.
Small 8vo, 2 vols.; original green wrappers printed in black and white; pp. [viii], 7-188, [iv]; [viii], 9-223, [i]; edges and spines rubbed, creased along the backstrips; a little toning, and small corner crease to the lower corner of volume 2; very good copies, still.
The true first edition of Nabokov's best-known title. The book did not appear in America until 1958, and in England until 1959. The success of this novel enabled the author to give up teaching and devote himself to writing.
Nabokov took five years to write Lolita, and it was finally published in 1953. Due to the subject matter, he originally intended to publish it pseudonymously, though with the inclusion of the character Vivian Darkbloom (an anagram for Vladamir Nabokov). The manuscript was, perhaps unsurprisingly, turned down by Viking, Simon & Schuster, New Directions, Farrar-Straus and Doubleday, and was subsequently banned for two years until Graham Greene came out in its favour, calling it “one of the three best books of 1955”(The London Times). This may not sound like high praise, but his approval led to the lift of the ban and eventual publication, though it was not without its scandal. In fact, it contributed hugely to the end of Nigel Nicholson's (from the publisher Weidenfeld & Nicholson) career.
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