Publisher's Synopsis

Vladimir Nabakov's shocking masterpiece, now in a beautifully designed clothbound edition

'Lolita is comedy, subversive yet divine' Martin Amis

Poet and pervert, Humbert Humbert becomes obsessed by twelve-year-old Lolita and seeks to possess her, first carnally and then artistically, out of love, 'to fix once for all the perilous magic of nymphets'. Is he in love or insane? A tortured soul or a monster? Humbert Humbert's seduction is one of many dimensions in Nabokov's dizzying masterpiece, which is suffused with a savage humour and rich, elaborate verbal textures. Filmed by Stanley Kubrick in 1962 starring James Mason and Peter Sellers, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne starring Jeremy Irons and Melanie Griffith, Lolita has lost none of its power to shock and awe.

A Modern First Edition is currently available from Blackwell's Rare Books:

Book information

ISBN: 9780241638439
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Imprint: Penguin Classics
Pub date:
Edition: Reprint
DEWEY: 813.54
DEWEY edition: 23
Language: English
Sales rank: 3399
Number of pages: 224
Weight: 448g
Height: 205mm
Width: 137mm
Spine width: 30mm