NABOKOV, Vladimir.

£5,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Lolita. First edition, first impression, first issue. Lolita was originally published with "Francs : 900" printed on the rear covers, but a sudden currency fluctuation at the time of publication meant that the books had to be re-priced to 1,200 francs. Copies of the first issue appear either without a price change, as here, or with the bookseller's hand-written correction. The second issue appeared with the publisher's overprice sticker on the rear covers. In this copy, the price of the second volume is untouched, and the price of the first volume has been lightly inked over in blank, but with no corrected price added, meaning this is likely to be some later marking, and not any sign of second issue.Nabokov, unable to find an American publisher brave enough to accept Lolita, turned to Paris to find a press. Olympia printed 5,000 copies in 1955; customs officials in the UK were quickly instructed to seize copies of the book at the border, and a year later it was also banned in France. Widespread censorship did little to dampen the book's success; when it was finally published in the USA in 1958 it topped best-seller lists, selling 100,000 copies in the first few weeks.Provenance: with the ownership inscription of Donald Richie (1924-2013), American author and critic of Japanese cinema, to rear inner wrapper of volume II. Richie wrote several books on Japan, and essays on nature of Japanese cinema: a personal friend of Yasujirō Ozu and Akira Kurosawa, he prepared the English su

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.