Lolita

New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1955, ©1955. First edition; eighth printing (stated). Large octavo in pale paper backed boards and black cloth spine; 319 pages; 23 cm. Rather worn copy lacking front free endpaper (neatly removed). Fair to Fair(-) but binding is tight, leaves clean. Slight must. Hardcover.

"When it was published in 1955, Lolita immediately became a cause celebre because of the freedom and sophistication with which it handled the unusual erotic predilections of its protagonist. But Vladimir Nabokov's wise, ironic, elegant masterpiece owes its stature as one of the twentieth century's novels of record not to the controversy its material aroused but to its author's use of that material to tell a love story almost shocking in its beauty and tenderness. Awe and exhilaration -- along with heartbreak and mordant wit -- abound in this account of the aging Humbert Humbert's obsessive, devouring, and doomed passion for the nymphet Dolores Haze. Lolita is also the story of a hypercivilized European colliding with the cheerful barbarism of postwar America, but most of all, it is a meditation on love -- love as outrage and hallucination, madness and transformation."—Publishers. / Forward and afterward by Vladimir Nabokov

Girls -- Fiction. Russian fiction -- 20th century. Hommes d'âge moyen -- Romans, nouvelles, etc. Filles -- Romans, nouvelles, etc. Roman russe -- 20e siècle. Russian fiction Girls Middle-aged men unreliable narrator. Named Person: Lolita (Fictitious character), 1935-1952 -- Fiction. Lolita (Fictitious character), 1935-1952 Love fiction. Romance fiction Erotic fiction Fiction Novels Erotic fiction. Love stories. Romance fiction. Erotic fiction. Novels. Romans. Time: 1900-1999