Vladimir Nabokov

A first edition, second issue copy of Nabokov's Lolita.

• Sold as a set of 2 volumes.
• Vladimir Nabokov (Russian).
• Paris: The Olympia Press, 1955.
• Octavo.
• Bound in publisher's green, white and black printed wrappers.

Nabokov's controversial novel was rejected by American publishers, but was finally accepted by the avant-garde Olympia Press in Paris and published in this two-volume edition. The novel was first brought to a wider English public by Graham Greene who selected it as one of his books of the year in an article in the Sunday Times newspaper. In 1956, John Gordon, editor of the Sunday Express, responded by calling it "the filthiest book I have ever read. Sheer unrestrained pornography," thus ensuring its enduring notoriety, and a ban in America and Britain until 1958.