Vladimir Nabokov
Continued from Vladimir Nabokov part 1
In The Olympia Press's edition of Lolita, it has a 'Publisher's Digression', which says:
"Publication, in September 1955, was followed by complete silence. For many months sales were ridiculously low, until Lolita received publicity from an unexpected quarter.
"A columnist named John Gordon wrote in the London Sunday Express of January 29, 1956:
"Has Mr Graham Greene, of Third Man fame, been pulling the leg of the sedate Sunday Times?
"He was asked by that newspaper to help its readers in their choice of good reading ...On his recommendation I bought Lolita. Without doubt it is the filthiest book I have ever read. Sheer unrestrained pornography. It's central character is a pervert with a passion for debauching what he calls 'nymphets'. ... The entire book is devoted to an exhaustive, uninhibited and utterly disgusting description of his pursuits and successes.
"It is published in France. Anyone who published it or sold it here would certainly go to prison ..." "
In the ensuing controversy, Lolita was banned in France on December 20, 1956. In the aforementioned publishers note, it explains how it succesfully fought against that ban but was (at the time of their writing) in the process of fighting another ban imposed on July 1958.
On February 8, 1957, U.S. Customs replied to a letter from the publishers saying that although copies of the book had been before their office, they had been released. Publication in America was therefore possible. An American edition was published on August 18, 1958 and dominated the best-seller list.
Stanley Kubrick came to film the book in 1961 and the book has sold in excess of 50 million copies in 20 languages.
Vladimir Nabokov spent his last years in Montreux, Switzerland where amonst many things he translated Zuschita Luschina (1929) into "The Luzhin Defense". It is a must for any chess fan (better than the film) and is emblematic of Nabokov's love of chess and chess problems.
Vladimir Nabokov died in Montreux in 1977.
In April 2008, Dmitri Nabokov, the son of Vladimir Nabokov, decided to publish the writer's final work, Laura, which was was incomplete when Nabokov died and he had told his family to burn it.
Back to Vladimir Nabokov biography part 1
