Lolita

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov is one of the most celebrated, controversial, and linguistically extraordinary novels of the twentieth century. First published in 1955, it presents the unreliable, self-justifying confession of Humbert Humbert — a cultivated European intellectual who becomes consumed by a destructive obsession with twelve-year-old Dolores Haze, whom he nicknames Lolita. What unfolds is a narrative of devastating moral complexity and extraordinary linguistic invention.

Nabokov's prose is among the most dazzlingly inventive in all of literature — playful, allusive, and shot through with dark irony, wordplay, and an aching, twisted beauty that makes the act of reading simultaneously thrilling and deeply uncomfortable. The gap between Humbert's self-serving narration and the grim reality the reader perceives behind it is one of the great achievements of unreliable narration in the literary canon.

The novel demands active, critical reading — Nabokov never permits the reader to simply be seduced by Humbert's eloquence, embedding within the text countless signals of what is truly happening beneath the narrator's elaborate self-mythologising. This is a book that is profoundly about the abuse of language as a tool of manipulation, even as it represents the English language at its most devastatingly beautiful.

A work that has generated more critical debate than almost any other novel of its era, Lolita is an essential text in world literature — challenging, morally serious, and unforgettable. Essential reading for students of literature and serious readers who want to engage with one of the most complex and technically brilliant novels ever written.

Product Details

ISBN: 9780141182537
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Author: Vladimir Nabokov
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Recommended Age: 18+
Weight: Approx. 290 g
Delivery Time: 5-7 Business Days