A Reader's Guide to Nabokov's 'Lolita'

Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is one of the most fascinating and controversial novels of the twentieth century. This book seeks to guide readers through the intricacies of Nabokov's work and to help them achieve a better understanding of his rich artistic design. Chapters include an analysis of the novel, a discussion of its precursors in Nabokov's work and in world literature, an essay on the character of Dolly Haze (Humbert's Lolita), and a commentary on the critical and cultural afterlife of the novel. The volume concludes with an annotated bibliography of selected critical reading. The guide should prove illuminating both for first-time readers of Lolita and for experienced re-readers of Nabokov's text. JULIAN W. CONNOLLY (Ph.D. Harvard, 1977) is Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Virginia. He is the author of Nabokov's Early Fiction: Patterns of Self and Other (1992) and editor of Nabokov and His Fiction: New Perspectives (1999) and The Cambridge Companion to Nabokov (2005). He has published over sixty articles on Russian literature.