Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

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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…

2703 words

Citation: Cornwell, Neil. "Lolita". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 June 2002 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=3904, accessed 29 March 2024.]

3904 Lolita 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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