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  • Published: 22 November 2000
  • ISBN: 9780141182537
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $22.99

Lolita




Always conceived of as shocking but also a brilliant satire, Humbert the serial fantasist continues to entice readers and lead Lolita to both fame and infamy

Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he'll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? ...Or is he all of these?

  • Published: 22 November 2000
  • ISBN: 9780141182537
  • Imprint: Penguin Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 336
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Vladimir Nabokov

One of the twentieth century's master prose stylists, Vladimir Nabokov (1899 - 1977) was born in St Petersburg, but left Russia when the Bolsheviks seized power. He studied French and Russian literature at Trinity College, Cambridge, then lived in Berlin and Paris, where he launched a brilliant literary career. In 1940 he moved to the United States, and achieved renown as a novelist, poet, critic, and translator. He taught literature at Wellesley, Stanford, Cornell, and Harvard. In 1961 he moved to Montreux, Switzerland, where he died in 1977.

His first novel in English was The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, published in 1941. His other books include Ada or Ardor (1969), Laughter in the Dark (1933), Pale Fire (1962), the short story collection Details of a Sunset (1976) and Lolita (1955), his best-known novel.

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Praise for Lolita

He did us all an honour by electing to use, and transform, our language.

Anthony Burgess

Nabokov can move you to laughter in the way that masters can - to laughter that is near to tears.

The Guardian

There's no funnier monster in modern literature than poor, doomed Humbert Humbert.

The Independent