Lolita -
Vladimir Nabokov
1955 - Olympia Press, Paris - First Edition First Issue
‘Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul... Lo. Lee. Ta... She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita.’
A superb set of Nabokov’s masterpiece, his notorious tale of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet, Dolores Haze, banned in the UK and US until 1958.
‘This is still one of the funniest and one of the saddest books that will be published this year. As for its pornographic content, I can think of few volumes more likely to quench the flames of lust than this exact and immediate description of its consequences’ – The New York Times 1958 This pair are presented wrapped in unusual ‘Printemps * Paris * Primavera’ paper covers. These appear to have been made from contemporary wrapping paper (possibly by a previous owner?) – ‘Primavera’ was a Parisian atelier within the French department store ‘Printemps’ – likely as a means of protecting the book or possibly to avoid any sensitivities given Lolita’s controversial reputation.
‘The critics hail his ‘grace and delicacy’ and his ability to understand and present ‘love’ in the most unlikely circumstances. The modern devaluation of values seems to have deprived them of the ability to distinguish love from lust and rape’ – The National Review 1958
‘By the spring of 1954 Nabokov had completed a longhand draft and ‘began casting around for a publisher’. It was now that the fun started. The immediate response of the four American publishers to whom it was submitted (Farrar Straus, Viking, Simon & Schuster and New Directions) was that they would not touch it with a bargepole. One editor, a timid soul, exclaimed ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’ Others expressed fears about prosecution, and hinted darkly at the risk of prison. In despair, Nabokov turned to publication in France with Maurice Girodias’s Olympia Press, an imprint specialising in what has been described as a list of ‘pornographic trash’. Nabokov duly signed a contract with the Olympia Press for publication of the book, which would not appear anonymously (as had been mooted in America) but came out in volume form (two volumes, actually) under his own name in 1955.’
– The Guardian
References: McCrum, ‘100 best novels: Lolita’ The Guardian 2015. Knopf Doubleday, web. Janeway, ‘The Tragedy of Man Driven by Desire’ The New York Times 1958.
Two small octavo Volumes (book size 11x17.5cm), pp. [2] 188 [2]; 223 [1]. Publisher’s green and white wrappers printed in black, with the price, ‘Francs: 900’, printed to lower rear covers. Condition: Near fine, hint of creasing to spines with light wear to ends, volume one with a few small spots to fore edge and pages 7, 14-15, 68-9, 106-9. Ref: 112344 Price: HK$ 90,000
A superb set of Nabokov’s masterpiece, his notorious tale of Humbert Humbert’s obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet, Dolores Haze, banned in the UK and US until 1958.
‘This is still one of the funniest and one of the saddest books that will be published this year. As for its pornographic content, I can think of few volumes more likely to quench the flames of lust than this exact and immediate description of its consequences’ – The New York Times 1958 This pair are presented wrapped in unusual ‘Printemps * Paris * Primavera’ paper covers. These appear to have been made from contemporary wrapping paper (possibly by a previous owner?) – ‘Primavera’ was a Parisian atelier within the French department store ‘Printemps’ – likely as a means of protecting the book or possibly to avoid any sensitivities given Lolita’s controversial reputation.
‘The critics hail his ‘grace and delicacy’ and his ability to understand and present ‘love’ in the most unlikely circumstances. The modern devaluation of values seems to have deprived them of the ability to distinguish love from lust and rape’ – The National Review 1958
‘By the spring of 1954 Nabokov had completed a longhand draft and ‘began casting around for a publisher’. It was now that the fun started. The immediate response of the four American publishers to whom it was submitted (Farrar Straus, Viking, Simon & Schuster and New Directions) was that they would not touch it with a bargepole. One editor, a timid soul, exclaimed ‘Do you think I’m crazy?’ Others expressed fears about prosecution, and hinted darkly at the risk of prison. In despair, Nabokov turned to publication in France with Maurice Girodias’s Olympia Press, an imprint specialising in what has been described as a list of ‘pornographic trash’. Nabokov duly signed a contract with the Olympia Press for publication of the book, which would not appear anonymously (as had been mooted in America) but came out in volume form (two volumes, actually) under his own name in 1955.’
– The Guardian
References: McCrum, ‘100 best novels: Lolita’ The Guardian 2015. Knopf Doubleday, web. Janeway, ‘The Tragedy of Man Driven by Desire’ The New York Times 1958.
Two small octavo Volumes (book size 11x17.5cm), pp. [2] 188 [2]; 223 [1]. Publisher’s green and white wrappers printed in black, with the price, ‘Francs: 900’, printed to lower rear covers. Condition: Near fine, hint of creasing to spines with light wear to ends, volume one with a few small spots to fore edge and pages 7, 14-15, 68-9, 106-9. Ref: 112344 Price: HK$ 90,000