Nabokov began to write Lolita in the late 1940s, completing it in 1954. Publishing difficulties in the USA, due to the novel's controversial subject matter, caused Nabokov to resort, through an intermediary, to the Olympia Press publishing house in Paris (well known for titles ranging from the highly literate to the somewhat dubious, in their “Traveller's Companion” series). Prompted by favourable interventions from influential literati (most notably Graham Greene), sizeable excerpts were published in the United States in June 1957 (in the Anchor Review: accompanied by what has since become the author's ever-present afterword – “On a Book Entitled Lolita”), and in 1958 Putnam's issued the first American edition of Lolita; in the same year, Harris-Kubrick Pictures acquired the film rights. The first British edition appeared in 1959.
What Nabokov recollected in 1956 as “the...
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Citation: Cornwell, Neil. "Lolita". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 June 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3904, accessed 09 June 2026.]
