A reprint of one of the greatest works of the 20th century.

Edited by Andrei Babikov, an expert at the Nabokov Foundation, with typos corrected and some of Nabokov's original spelling, transliteration, and punctuation preserved.

Now it is a classic of world literature, a novel that no connoisseur of subtle and intelligent prose can ignore. The book was included in lists of the best books of the century by the New Library, Le Monde, and Time. But when Nabokov completed the work in 1954, no American publisher would risk publishing it. Finally, the French publishing house Olympia Press, which published avant-garde and erotic literature, agreed. Since then, the novel has been banned and cursed, extolled and idolized. The story of thirty-seven-year-old Humbert Humbert's passion for his twelve-year-old stepdaughter Dolores is one of the first literary works dedicated to a large-scale exploration of the topic of pedophilia. But this is only the first outline of the work, and the number of outlines in 'Lolita' is incredibly large. It is a parody of popular literary genres, a reflection on American and European cultures, a flawless stylistic experiment, and a sadness about lost innocence. Not one specific girl, but the entire era during which the novel unfolds.

Abstract

As a child, Humbert Humbert experienced a mutual, but incredibly painful, crush on a girl, Annabel Lee. Their parents were eventually forced to separate them, and Annabel died soon after. This event, according to Humbert himself, became the reason for his passion for underage girls, whom he calls 'nymphets.'

1947. Thirty-seven-year-old French literature professor Humbert Humbert rents a house in the northeastern United States, in New England. His landlady, Charlotte Haze, has a twelve-year-old daughter, Dolores, whom Humbert affectionately calls Lolita. Humbert's passion for Lolita drives him to seek any excuse to be alone with her. Thus begins a story that will change 20th-century literature.

The novel has been adapted for the screen twice: in 1962 by Stanley Kubrick, starring James Mason, Shelley Winters, and Sue Lyon, and in 1997 by Adrian Lyne, starring Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain, and Melanie Griffith.