NABOKOV, Vladimir.

£25,000 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Lolita. First US edition, third printing, inscribed by the author on the half-title, "For Anita Loos, Vladimir Nabokov. Ithaca NY, Oct. 1958". As Véra explained to the author of Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1925; musical 1949), Nabokov only inscribed Lolita "for personal friends and the very few writers whose work he admires" (Letters, p. 265).Loos wrote to Nabokov the month before this inscription, "I have enjoyed 'Lolita' more than any book since 'Huckleberry Finn' and am endlessly grateful to you". Véra replied that her husband was happy to sign a copy for her, but that he could not make an exception for Loos's friend after denying his autograph to many of his students and acquaintances. "He hopes you will excuse him, especially as you must have often been in the same situation" (Letters, p. 265). Loos's bookplate, featuring an offset chromolithographic portrait of her by Frank Wald, is on the front pastedown.Lolita was first published in Paris by the Olympia Press in 1955. The first American printing appeared in July 1958 and it went into the third printing the same year.

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