Nabokov’s classic novel Lolita first edition has been rebound in a run of twelve lettered copies with a new introduction. It is offered with a photo from the film.

The novel has been read and studied by the generations since for its clever use of language, self-consciousness technique and the author’s probing of “reality”.   Nabokov said about Lolita that he had set about “inventing America”. He viewed the book as an absurd comedy open to a variety of interpretations. Lo, the girl that become in narrator Humbert’s imagination, the title character, and it’s really the two-fold nature of her that drives him insane – the innocent and the “dirty” (p. 45). By extension, she’s the young, innocent Yankee Country breaking away from the wise, but old class-ridden European deferential culture. She’s the bright future! Another sees her as the cute seductress, the priestess of the enticing consumerist society, narrowing down the future to ultimately self-delusion. Others find a mixture of these two views – the “American Dream” as offering freedom and irresistibly appealing, but ultimately an illusion doomed to shallow dullness. Is it a love affair about two people tragically drawn together? Yet, of course in recent years, with #MeToo and Weinstein etc. another view has gained ground: the child as both individual and societal victim.