Books

First UK edition, first impression. Lolita was first published by the Olympia Press in Paris in 1955 after Nabokov was unable to find an American publisher brave enough to accept the work. Customs officials in the UK were quickly instructed to seize copies of the book at the border, and a year later it was also banned in France. Widespread censorship did little to dampen the book's success: when it was finally published in the USA in 1958, it topped best-seller lists, selling 100,000 copies in the first few weeks. Kingsley Amis, writing for The Spectator in 1959, remarked on the almost immediate cult-status of the novel in the UK: "Few books published in this country since the King James Bible can have set up more eager expectation than Lolita, nor, on the other hand, can any work have been much better known in advance to its potential audience". Octavo. Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in red morocco, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, raised bands, single rule to boards gilt, twin rule to turn-ins gilt, black and white patterned endpapers, gilt edges. A fine copy. Juliar A28.3. For Amis, Kirsch, and Prescott, see "Sick, Scandalous, Spectacular: The First Reviews of Lolita", Literary Hub, 18 Aug. 2020, accessible online.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.