Lolita. [Traveller's Companion series, no. 66.] [Second printing.]

Bookseller Notes

The second printing of Nabokov's masterpiece is important as the first to feature Girodias's Publisher's Digression: here he explains the book's paradigmatic status in respect of 'the machinations of censorship', commenting on the self-defeating aspect of such denunciation ('any book is immediately boosted by the threat of ban') and - in declaring censorship 'an adult practice, invented by adults who themselves suffer from some sexual inferiority complex' - couples the book with 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' as one that endangers children less than the Victorian legacy of 'the heavy atmosphere of adult hypocrisy'. This latter passage, and its literary comparison, is among those omitted by the time this Digression was revised and extended for the subsequent printing - though its terms and tone only gain conviction as the evidence in the case grew.