Lolita

Front cover of a 1955 first edition of Volume One of Lolita. Nabokov insisted that there be no images of little girls on the cover. Such images, however, frequently appear on the covers of later editions.

Lolita is a novel written in English by the Russian-born author Vladimir Nabokov. After it was rejected by several American publishers, it was first published in two volumes in Paris in 1955 by The Olympia Press, which was best known for publishing pornography. Nabokov's own Russian translation of Lolita was first published in 1967.

The novel takes place mostly in the United States between the years 1947 and 1952. Its main character and unreliable narrator is a scholarly middle-aged European man named Humbert Humbert. The story is framed as Humbert's memoir that he writes in jail while awaiting trial for murder. In telling his tale, Humbert makes several literary and other artistic allusions and uses highly sophisticated vocabulary with frequent lapses into French, occasional lapses into German and half a paragraph written in mock Latin. Humbert describes his sexual obsession with, and subsequent abuse of, a girl named Dolores Haze whom he, and only he, calls Lolita. Humbert Humbert first meets and becomes obsessed with Dolores Haze when she is 12-years old and he rents a room in the home of her widowed mother, Charlotte Haze, in the small town of Ramsdale. Charlotte Haze falls in love with Humbert and lets him know through a letter when Dolores goes away to summer camp. So as to have easy access to Dolores, Humbert agrees to marry Charlotte. His plans are thwarted when he finds out that Charlotte is going to send Dolores straight from the summer camp, from which she has not yet returned, to a boarding school. Charlotte finds out about Humbert's lust for Dolores. Almost immediately afterwards, she is hit by a car and killed. Humbert goes to collect Dolores from summer camp after her mother's death. Instead of returning to Ramsdale, they travel across the United States for a year. They eventually settle down in the town of Beardsley, where Humbert gets a position at the local university and Dolores attends an all-girls school. Dolores declares that she is unhappy at the school and wants to go on another journey across the country. During their second road trip, Humbert becomes aware that another middle-aged man is following them. He thinks at first that the man is a private detective but later suspects him of being Dolores' secret lover. Dolores has to be hospitalized. When she recovers and he goes to collect her, Humbert is informed that she has already left with her uncle. Some years later, Humbert finds out that Dolores was lured away by the famous playwright Clare Quilty.

Lolita is not a love story and it is not intended to titillate the reader. Although he repeatedly claims to love Dolores, Humbert Humbert is well aware of how unhappy she is and of the physical and emotional harm that he is doing to her. The subject matter of Lolita means that many readers will find it disturbing. Several passages in the novel make for deliberately uncomfortable reading.

There have been numerous adaptations of Lolita to other media, the best known of which are the 1962 film directed by Stanley Kubrick and the 1997 film directed by Adrian Lyne.

Plot

Humbert Humbert is born in Paris in 1910 to a Swiss father of Austrian and Eastern European descent and an English mother. He spends most of his childhood in Monaco, where his father owns a hotel. The boy Humbert is very popular with the hotel's international guests. Although he does not remember his mother because she died when he was 3 years-old, one of Humbert's English aunts helps to raise him and he attends a school where all of his lessons are taught in English. When Humbert is 12 years-old, a girl of the same age comes to stay at his father's hotel. Like Humbert, she is of mixed parentage, being half-English and half-Dutch. Her name is Annabel, Humbert later calls her "Annabel Lee". She and Humbert fall in love with each other and Humbert has his first sexual experience with her. A few weeks after she leaves the hotel, Annabel dies of typhoid. Humbert claims that Annabel's death at the age of 12 causes him to become fixated on girls of about that age. He continues to search for a second girl like his lost Annabel into adulthood.

Humbert studies in England and Paris and eventually earns a degree in English literature. He writes articles that are published in academic journals. He writes a book about English poetry for French-speaking students and begins work on a series of books about French literature for English-speaking students. He continues to be obsessed with underage girls. He frequents places where they congregate and relishes whatever limited physical contact he has with them. Although he would like to abuse those girls, he never has the opportunity. He fondly recalls the time he spent with a prostitute whom he suspects may have been under 18. He struggles with his mental health and spends time in sanatoria as a result. Humbert begins to settle down to a middle-class life in Paris. He marries a Polish woman named Valeria who is the daughter of his doctor. She leaves him for an exiled Russian nobleman who works as a taxi driver.

Shortly before Humbert gets divorced, an uncle of his, who emigrated to the United States and made a fortune in the perfume business, dies and leaves a large amount of money to Humbert in his will. The will stipulates, however, that in order to come into his inheritance, Humbert has to move to the United States and work at his uncle's perfume company. Humbert moves to New York and writes advertising slogans for the perfume company. His publishers ask him to continue work on the series of books about French literature and that becomes his main occupation. Humbert plans to spend the summer of 1947 writing the next book in the series somewhere quiet. One of his co-workers at the perfume company arranges for Humbert to stay with friends of his in the small town of Ramsdale. Humbert is pleased to find out that his co-worker's friends have a 12 year-old daughter whom he hopes to seduce. Shortly before Humbert arrives in Ramsdale, the house where he was to stay burns down. The widow Charlotte Haze offers to rent a room to Humbert instead. She shows Humbert around her house. He dislikes it and wants to leave. He changes his mind when he sees Mrs. Haze's 12 year-old daughter Dolores. He believes Dolores to be the second Annabel that he has been seeking most of his life.

Humbert keeps a diary in which he writes about his lust for Dolores, whom he calls Carmen, Lo, Lola and Lolita. He details all occasions when he has any kind of physical contact with the girl. He also writes about how much he dislikes Dolores' mother Charlotte and how she frustrates his attempts to get close to the girl. He keeps the diary locked in a drawer in his room and writes in deliberately tiny script so as to frustrate anyone else who tries to read it.

When Dolores goes away to summer camp, Charlotte Haze gets her maid to give a letter to Humbert. In the letter, Charlotte tells Humbert that she has fallen madly in love with him. She tells him that he must leave her house at once, unless he also loves her and is prepared to marry her. Humbert marries Charlotte soon afterwards in a quiet ceremony, only doing so in order to have more ready access to Dolores. He plans to drug both Charlotte and Dolores so that he can molest Dolores in her sleep without being detected. Claiming to have terrible insomnia, he gets what his doctor tells him are the most powerful sleeping tablets available. Humbert's plans are thwarted when Charlotte tells him she intends to send Dolores straight from the summer camp, from which she has not yet returned, to a boarding school. Charlotte also tells Humbert that she does not like him keeping secrets from her by keeping something locked in a drawer.

Charlotte finds the key to the drawer and reads Humbert's diary. She is horrified to read about Humbert's hatred for her and his lust for Dolores. She tells Humbert that she is leaving. He can keep the house but he will never see Dolores again. Humbert tries to tell her that what she read were notes for a novel he is writing and that he simply used her name and Dolores' as placeholders. She does not believe him. She hurriedly writes three letters about Humbert. She runs to post the letters in the mailbox across the street. As she does so, she is hit by a car and instantly killed. A girl hands Humbert the un-mailed letters, which he destroys. Charlotte's funeral is held soon afterwards and it is an even quieter affair than her marriage to Humbert. Dolores still does not know that her mother is dead.

Front cover of a 1967 first edition of Nabokov's own Russian translation of Lolita.

Humbert drives to the summer camp to collect Dolores. He tells her that her mother is seriously ill in hospital. He takes Dolores to a fine hotel called The Enchanted Hunters that Charlotte had earlier recommended to him. At dinner, Humbert pretends to take one of the large purple sleeping pills that the doctor in Ramsdale gave him. As planned, Dolores is curious. He tells her they are vitamins. Also as planned, Dolores asks to have one. After she takes the pill, she becomes drowsy and Humbert takes her back to the room they are sharing. Humbert leaves the room and wanders around the hotel while he is waiting for Dolores to go to sleep. On the patio, a man seated in darkness talks to Humbert. He implies that he knows what Humbert's true intentions towards Dolores are. Humbert makes his excuses, leaves and returns to his room. He finds out that the sleeping are not as powerful as the doctor in Ramsdale had claimed. Dolores is not in a deep sleep and she wakes up frequently during the night. Humbert spends a sleepless night and does not touch Dolores.

The following morning, Dolores tells Humbert about a "game" that she and other girls at the summer camp played with the camp owner's 14 year-old son. Humbert claims that she demonstrates to him how to play the game and it is thus that Dolores initiates the sexual relationship with Humbert. Soon afterwards, however, Dolores says that she was a virgin until Humbert raped her. After leaving the hotel, Dolores asks for some coins so that she can call her mother on the payphone. Humbert then tells her that her mother is dead.

Humbert and Dolores spend the entire year from August 1947 to August 1948 traveling across the United States. They usually sleep in cheap motels but sometimes stay in expensive hotels instead. Dolores is often bored or desperately unhappy during the journey. Humbert struggles to keep her interested in the tourist destinations they visit. He is aware that Dolores does not love him. To prevent her from leaving him, he tells her that if she told the police about him, although he would be sent to prison, she would be sent to a reform school for juvenile delinquents and would be deprived of all the luxuries she enjoys. Humbert has to bribe Dolores with money and promises of other treats to get her to perform sexual acts with him, which she hates performing. Humbert also begins to find Dolores annoying because of her fondness for popular music, movies, magazines, comic books and candy as is typical for a girl her age. Dolores shows little interest in the books Humbert recommends to her.

Having befriended a Professor of French there, Humbert is offered a position at the university in the small town of Beardsley. He and Dolores settle there. Dolores is enrolled in a private school for girls, although Humbert finds it much too progressive for his tastes. Humbert presents himself as Dolores' father. He is constantly worried, however, that their neighbors may suspect the true nature of their relationship or that Dolores might blurt out their secret to her friends. Humbert strictly controls Dolores' life outside of school. He barely allows her to socialize and tries to prevent her from having any contact with boys of her own age. The headmistress of Dolores school calls Humbert in to talk to him. She tells him she believes he is stifling Dolores' development. It is only at the headmistress' urging that Humbert reluctantly allows Dolores to take part in the school play, The Enchanted Hunters. It was written by the famous playwright Clare Quilty, who will attend some of the rehearsals. Dolores is given one of the play's principal roles.

Blanche Baker as Dolores Haze and Donald Sutherland as Humbert Humbert during rehearsals for a stage adaptation of Lolita in New York in 1981.

The day before the play is set to open, Dolores announces that she is desperately unhappy in Beardsley and wants to go on a second road trip across the country. Humbert readily agrees. A few days into their journey, Humbert notices that another middle-aged man is constantly following them on the road. He remarks to Dolores that the man looks just like his Swiss uncle Gustave Trapp. At first, Humbert thinks the man is a private detective hired by a suspicious neighbor in Beardsley to find out the truth about his relationship with Dolores. After seeing her talking with him at gas stations, Humbert becomes convinced the man is Dolores' secret lover.

In the mountains of Colorado, Dolores falls seriously ill and has to be hospitalized. After some days, Humbert is informed by the hospital that Dolores is well enough to leave. When he goes to collect her, Humbert is told that she has already left with her uncle. Humbert knows that the "uncle" was really the man who had been following them. Having no idea where the man took Dolores, Humbert tries instead to find out his identity. He retraces the route that he and Dolores took and checks the guestbooks of hotels and motels along the way. He notices a series of different names all written in the same handwriting, including Gustave Trapp of Geneva, NY. The fake names and accompanying places of residence often include literary references and puns, sometimes across languages, that are clearly intended to mock Humbert. Having failed to find out the man's true identity, Humbert returns to Beardsley. He hires a private detective who turns out to be incompetent. Humbert gives up on the idea of ever finding Dolores again and finds some comfort in a relationship with an alcoholic woman named Rita.

Two years after returning to Beardsley, Humbert suddenly receives a letter from the now 17 year-old Dolores in Coalmont, Tennessee. She tells him that she is married to a man named Richard Schiller and is pregnant. Richard has been offered a good job in Alaska but they need money to move there. Dolores asks Humbert to send the money to a P.O. box. She asks Humbert not to come to see her and does not give her address. Believing Richard Schiller to be the man with whom Dolores left the hospital in Colorado, Humbert finds out where he and Dolores live. He goes there with the intention of shooting Schiller. Dolores is surprised to see Humbert but graciously invites him into her home. Humbert sees the young Richard Schiller, who was clearly not the man who was following them on their road trip. After a lot of coaxing, Dolores reveals that the man who lured her away was the famous playwright Clare Quilty. She first met him through her mother when she was very young and she considers him to be the only man she ever really loved. Dolores spent some time with Clare and his debauched friends at his ranch. She left when he asked her to appear in the pornographic films he was making. She then drifted around the country, usually working as a waitress, until she met Richard Schiller. He knows nothing about her past with either Humbert Humbert or Clare Quilty. Humbert begs Dolores to leave her husband and go away with him. Dolores refuses and says she would rather go back to Clare. Humbert gives Dolores much more money than she asked for and leaves.

Humbert finds out where Clare Quilty lives. He enters the mansion through its unlocked front door. Clare Quilty, much the worse for drink and drugs, emerges from his bedroom and goes downstairs. It takes him some time to realize the very real threat that Humbert poses to him. Quilty then tries in turn to wrestle the gun from Humbert's hand and to try to bribe Humbert into sparing his life. Humbert chases Quilty to an upper story room and shoots him several times without killing him. All the while, Quilty keeps talking and keeps politely asking Humbert to stop. When he is finally satisfied that Quilty is dead, Humbert leaves the room and sees that some of Clare Quilty's friends are now in the house. He tells them that he has just killed Clare Quilty. They think he is joking, however, and allow him to leave. As he does so, the dying Clare Quilty crawls out of the room and into view of his friends. Having already broken the law, Humbert Humbert decides to add to his crimes by driving on the wrong side of the road. He stops when his path is barred by a police car.

While awaiting trial for the murder of Clare Quilty, Humbert Humbert dies in jail of heart disease. Dolores dies in Alaska while giving birth to a stillborn girl on Christmas Day 1952.

Adaptations

Theatrical release poster for the 1962 film Lolita.

Lolita was first adapted for the screen as the 1962 British-American film of the same name directed by Stanley Kubrick. Although the screenplay is credited to Vladimir Nabokov alone, it was extensively rewritten by Kubrick and screenwriter James Harris with very little of Nabokov's movie script remaining in the completed film. The film stars James Mason as Humbert Humbert, Sue Lyon as Dolores Haze, Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze and Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty. It is first and foremost a comedy that showcases the talents of the British comedian Peter Sellers in the role of Clare Quilty, a character who is given much greater prominence in the film than in the novel. Sellers was allowed to improvise much of his dialogue and steals every seen he is in. A noticeable difference between the film and the novel is that whereas in the novel Dolores is only called "Lolita" by Humbert, in the film she is called "Lolita" by everybody. Movie ratings had not yet been introduced to the United States at the time of the film's release and the Hays Code was still in effect, meaning that a sexual relationship between Humbert and Dolores could only be insinuated with much left to the viewer's imagination. The character of Dolores is aged up from 12 to 14 at the time that Humbert first meets her. Sue Lyon was herself 14 at the time that filming started and one of the reasons why she was selected for the role of Dolores was because she looked slightly older than her 14 years. In her appearance and behavior, the Dolores of the film more closely resembles an older teenager or a young adult than a child. Humbert Humbert's backstory prior to his arrival in Ramsdale is omitted from the film entirely, as are all references to his relationships with other women and girls. Lolita received mixed reviews from critics on its release and had very little advertising. Nevertheless, it was a box office success. Having been made on a budget of US$2 million, it earned US$9 million.

The novel was adapted again as the 1997 French-American film Lolita directed by Adrian Lyne. It stars Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert, Dominique Swain as Dolores Haze, Melanie Griffith as Charlotte Haze and Frank Langella as Clare Quilty. The screenplay by first time screenwriter Stephen Schiff follows Nabokov's novel much more closely than Kubrick's 1962 film does. Dominique Swain was 15 when filming started. In common with the 1962 film, the character of Dolores is aged up from 12 to 14 at the time that Humbert first meets her. Unlike her counterpart in the 1962 film, however, the Dolores of the 1997 film is unmistakably childish in her appearance and behavior, making the nature of Humbert's sexual fixation obvious. Although many critics praised Irons' and Swain's performances, the film received mixed reviews. It was not a box office success. Having been made on a budget of US$62 million, it only earned US$1.1 million dollars in the United States. The film struggled to find a North American distributor and was shown on the cable TV channel Showtime before its American theatrical release.

A musical adaptation of the novel, called Lolita, My Love was written by the British composer John Barry and the American lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. The musical was intended to tour the United States for a while so that any problems with it could be worked out before it opened on Broadway. It was first performed in Philadelphia on February 16, 1971. Due to overwhelmingly negative critical reaction, the production never opened on Broadway and lost US$900,000.

The American playwright Edward Albee adapted Lolita as a play of the same name that was first performed at the Brooks Atkinson Theater on Broadway on February 20, 1981. The play closed after thirty-one previews and twelve performances. The Russian-born theater director Victor Sobchak adapted Lolita as a play that was first performed at the Lion and Unicorn fringe theater in London in 2003. Sobchak's version moves the story to present-day England and omits the character of Clare Quilty. Actor Brian Cox appeared as Humbert Humbert in a one-man-show adaptation of Lolita in London in 2009.

Operas based on Lolita were written by the Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin (1994) and the American composer Joshua Fineberg (2009). The Italian choreographer Davide Bombana adapted Lolita as a ballet that was first performed in Geneva, Switzerland in 2003.

The story of Lolita has been rewritten from the point of view of Dolores Haze in the 1992 poetry anthology Poems for Men Who Dream of Lolita by the Canadian poet and playwright Kim Morrissey, the 1992 novel Diario di Lo (published in English in 1999 as Lo's Diary) by the Italian writer Pia Pera and the 1999 novel Roger Fishbite by the American author Emily Prager.

See also

• Trailer for the 1962 film Lolita

External links

• Quotations from and about Lolita on Wikiquote.
• Reader's guide to Lolita on Wikibooks.
• Lolita study guide on the SparkNotes website.