This controversial novel is a masterful observation of the dark side of human nature. Although it is a story about an older man seducing a much younger girl and may make for uncomfortable reading the characters are so well drawn and the language so intoxicating that you will find yourself drawn in and unable to put it down.

Synopsis

A special limited edition of nine classic novels produced to coincide with Weidenfeld & Nicolson's 60th anniversary. Designed by the award-winning advertising agency Fallon with special endpapers commissioned from ground-breaking artists. The endpapers for this title have been designed by Louisa Scarlet Gray.

Following a failed marriage to a 'large, puffy, short-legged, big-breasted and practically brainless baba', Humbert Humbert decides to move to America to work as a tutor. Much to his dismay, his plans change and he moves into a boarding house in Ramsdale, New Hampshire. But his disappointment quickly fades after he realises the duaghter of his landlady is the 'light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul Lo-li-ta.' The relationship blossoms between the man 'with a cesspool of rotting monsters behind his slow boyish smile' and the sassy, vivacious young girl in Nabokov's highly controversial take on the classic American road trip novel.

Reviews

'Lolita remains a great and serious work of literature... this classic should be read for its depiction of the darkness of the human soul.'  CATHOLIC HERALD
 
'Only the bravest publication dared to print Nabokov's 1959 novel, now acclaimed as 'one of the most important works of the 20th century'... The novel is all the more disturbing because Nabokov writes with such exquisite, incandescent, mouth wateringly beautiful prose.' DAILY MAIL

About the Author

Considered to be one of the greatest novelists of the twentieth century, Vladimir Nabokov was born in St Petersburg in 1899. After living in Europe and studying at Cambridge University, he moved to the United States in 1940, where he pursued a brilliant literary career. He died in 1977 in Switzerland. More books by this author Author 'Like for Like' recommendation