Lolita.

NABOKOV, Vladimir.

Item Number: 143981

New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1955.

First American edition and first trade edition of Nabokov’s masterpiece. Octavo, bound in full morocco by the Harcourt Bindery, gilt titles and tooling to the spine in six compartments within raised gilt bands, gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, gilt inner dentelles stamp-signed by the Harcourt Bindery, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. In fine condition. An exceptional presentation.

One of the most celebrated books in history, Nabokov's Lolita quickly attained classic status upon publication in 1955. Notable for its controversial subject, the novel was adapted into a film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne in addition to several adaptations for stage. "Lolita blazes with a perversity of a most original kind. For Mr. Nabokov has distilled from his shocking material hundred-proof intellectual farce. Lolita seems an assertion of the power of the comic spirit to wrest delight and truth from the most outlandish materials. It is one of the funniest serious novels I have ever read; and the vision of its abominable hero, who never deludes or excuses himself, brings into grotesque relief the cant, the vulgarity, and the hypocritical conventions that pervade the human comedy" (Atlantic Monthly).