Available Copies from Independent Booksellers
Price: US$50.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Fourth Printing. Volume Two only. this edition is the one with the multi-colored cover
Seller: Reifsnyder Books, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A.
Vladimir Nabokov. Lolita. Olympia Press, 1959.
Price: US$70.97 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Third edition paperback. Signed by Swedish writer Anders Ehnmark. Condition: Very Good.
Seller: Spegelglas, Stockholm, Sweden
Nabokov Vladimir,. Lolita,. Arnoldo Mondadori Editore,, Verona,, 1959.
Price: US$131.68 + shipping
Description: In 8°; 481, (1) pp. Legatura editoriale in piena tela verde con sopraccoperta editoriale originale con titolo e autore in nero entro cornice in verde e oro e immagine della medusa. Leggerissimi difetti alla sopraccoperta ma nel complesso esemplare in buone-ottime condizioni di conservazione. Prima edizione italiana, non comune a trovarsi completa della sopraccoperta editoriale, del più celebre romanzo del grande scrittore, saggista, critico letterario, entomologo, drammaturgo e poeta russo naturalizzato statunitense, Vladimir Vladimirovic Nabokov (Pietroburgo, 22 aprile 1899 Montreux, 2 luglio 1977), l'autore è universalmente noto per il suo Lolita (1955), scritto in inglese e base per l'omonimo e famosissimo film del 1962 di Stanley Kubrick. Seppur il libro all'uscita ebbe un enorme successo di pubblico, "A causa della trama, il libro venne rifiutato da molte case editrici, a meno di pesanti tagli e censure che Nabokov si rifiutò sempre di operare. Fu pubblicato a Parigi dalla Olympia Press, un'importante casa editrice di letteratura erotica nel 1955; in quell'anno lo scrittore Graham Greene - in un'intervista al Sunday Times di Londra - lo elogiò come uno dei migliori romanzi dell'anno, anche se i problemi di pubblicazione permasero. Nel dicembre 1956, il ministro degli Interni francese lo bandì per due anni. La prima edizione americana avvenne nel 1958 per la G.P. Putnam's Sons. Scalò la classifica dei best seller più venduti e divenne il primo libro dopo Via col vento a vendere 100.000 copie nelle prime tre settimane di pubblicazione. In Italia fu pubblicato nel 1959 da Mondadori; nel 1993 l'Adelphi pubblicò una nuova versione di Lolita nell'ambito del progetto di ritraduzione di tutte le opere di Nabokov. Nonostante lo scandalo, le circa quattrocento pagine del libro non contengono né parole né descrizioni oscene: la trama è intessuta di uno stile letterariamente alto ed elegante che allude alle scabrosità senza mai descriverle esplicitamente". Quella qui proposta è la prima ed unica traduzione dall'americano autorizzata che si deve alla penna di Bruno Oddera. L'opera uscì nella Collana Medusa con il numero 424. Prima edizione completa della rara sopraccoperta.
Seller: Studio Bibliografico Antonio Zanfrognini, Modena, Italy
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. Olympia Press, 1959.
Price: US$164.60 + shipping
Description: 3rd. printing, kl 8°, Brosch., 319 S. - Kanten berieben, Buchblock etwas verzogen, innen gut u. sauber erhaltenes Exemplar
Seller: Graphem. Kunst- und Buchantiquariat, Berlin, Germany
Price: US$190.80 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: The Traveller's Companion Series No. 66. Fourth printing of the true first edition - a complete two volume set, and First Thus - in the stained-glass design wrappers, rather than the traditional Olympia Press green covers. Also with the Publisher's Digression - a six page introduction describing the problematic publishing history of the novel, and the debate over obscenity in literature. ***Both volumes published in September 1959 (the first printing was published September 1955, the second printing in November 1958, and the third printing in April 1959). Both volumes priced 3.75 N.F. on the back wrappers, and have 'printed September 1959' to the bottom of the last page of each volume, as called for. ***Both volumes are near fine in the stained-glass design card covers printed in white. Edges of wrappers just very slightly rubbed. Wrappers bright and clean. No reading creases to the spines. Spines tight. Internally also near fine, with no inscriptions. No foxing. Pages clean. **176mm x112mm. Volume One: 190 pages plus two-page publisher's short list of Olympia titles to rear. Volume Two: 221 pages. ***A two-volume set of the fourth printing of the true first edition, in the attractive stained-glass design covers. Both volumes published in September 1959 and ij near fine condition. Rarely found now in this condition. ***Of interest to collectors of Vladimir Nabokov's work and the publications of the Olympia Press in Paris. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.
Seller: Orlando Booksellers, Lincoln, United Kingdom
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. 1-2.. Paris, Olympia Press 1959. 1958, 1959.
Price: US$217.63 + shipping
Description: Fourth printing. 190, (2), 222 pp. Printed wrappers. A very good, near fine copy.
Seller: Rönnells Antikvariat AB, Stockholm, Sweden
Price: US$275.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Small 12mo. Pp. 189; 221. Text preceded by a "Publisher's Digression." Printed September 1959. Titles and decorative borders printed in green and black on the cover and spine, perfect bound, title page in black and green. Volume 1 spine minimally sunned, back cover price overstamped "New Price 6 NF 2 vols." Maurice Girodias's "Digression" concerning censorship of the novel he was first to publish initially appeared in the third printing of April 1959. Superbly well preserved.
Seller: Long Brothers Fine & Rare Books, ABAA, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita Volumes I&II. The Olympia Press, France, 1959.
Price: US$300.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: The books both have rubbing and toning overall, brief foxing to the page edges, and creases down the spine. Volume II has a brief bump to the fore-edge. Photos on request. International shipping billed at cost. ; The Traveller's Companion Series; 8vo 8" - 9" tall
Seller: Boards & Wraps, Baltimore, MD, U.S.A.
NABOKOV, Vladimir; [HOWARD, Elizabeth Jane]. LOLITA. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson., 1959.
Price: US$318.01 + shipping
Description: First UK edition, first printing. Elizabeth Jane Howard's copy. Original black cloth lettered in silver to the spine, in the Eric Ayers designed dustwrapper. A good copy, the binding square and firm. Spine tips are rubbed and nicked, with a short tear to the cloth at the lower edge of the front hinge. The pink top-stain is a little dusty. With the posthumous Ex-Libris stamp, dated 2015, of the English novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard, the book clearly well-read, with a number of dog-ear creases to corners and marks to pages. A handful of passages are marked by Howard in the margin of the text. There are also two brief annotations. Complete with the dustwrapper, rubbed and nicked to spine tips and corners, with a handful of short closed tears to edges. ` Nabokov completed 'Lolita' in December of 1953; it had taken five years to write. He predicted that the novel's content would cause trouble and indeed the novel was rejected by every UK and US publisher who looked at it. Nabokov eventually placed it with Maurice Girodias' Olympia Press in Paris (Samuel Beckett had recently published 'Watt' with Girodias). Published in September 1955, across a pair of the distinctive green Olympia paperbacks, 'Lolita' received little attention until Graham Greene singled out the novel in the Sunday Times as one of the three best books of 1955. Owing to subsequent legal wranglings, however, 'Lolita' waited until 1958 for its first US publication (it was an immediate bestseller, for all the wrong reasons), and another year before appearing in the UK. This copy of the first UK edition is from the library of the English novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard (1923-2014), whose fourth novel, 'The Sea Change' (a very different kind of book) was published earlier the same year. Artemis Cooper, in her biography of Howard, notes that she "had the satisfaction of being listed as one of the Sunday Times's Outstanding Books for November", joining John Braine's 'The Vodi', John Hersey's 'The War Lover' and 'Lolita', with Laurie Lee's 'Cider with Rosie' (Lee was a former lover) in the non-fiction category. Howard clearly read 'Lolita' carefully, with pen in hand. A handful of sentences are marked with lines and ticks, the passages singled out characterised by their distinctly Nabokovian use of far-flung similitude (two examples: "I felt a Dostoevskian grin dawning [.] like a distant and terrible sun", p. 70; "It was something quite special, that feeling: an oppressive, hideous constraint as if I were sitting with the small ghost of somebody I had just killed", p. 138). At the top of p. 110, Howard comments, gnomically, "Can't construct, is all", her own awkward construction neatly pressing home the point; and, on p. 158, where Humbert writes of sitting "with a dummy book or a bag of bonbons, or both, or nothing but my tingling glands, and watch her gambol, rubber-capped, bepearled, smoothly tanned, as glad as an ad, in her trim-fitted satin pants and shirred bra. Pubescent sweetheart!", a swift line and economical "uh uh" are written in the margin. It was three years later, in 1962, as director of the Cheltenham literary festival that Howard first met Kingsley Amis (he had been invited to discuss sex and censorship in literature, of all things, with Carson McCullers and Joseph Heller). The immediate attraction was "powerful enough to end both their [existing] marriages", leading to their own marriage in 1965. Amis had written one of the most interesting of the UK reviews of Lolita for the Spectator in 1959. He disliked (and misunderstood) the book, while acknowledging and avoiding the common error of reading the novel as being in any way salacious. "It is encouraging to see all this concern for a book of serious literary pretension", he wrote, "even if some of the concern, while serious enough, is not literary in the way we ordinarily think of it. One would be even more encouraged if the book in question were not so thoroughly bad in both senses: bad as a work of art, that is, and morally bad though certainly not obscene or pornographic." Perhaps ironically, it was Kingsley's son Martin, who was famously taken in hand by Howard as a disaffected teenager, nurturing him to become a keen reader and first-class Oxford graduate (recounted in Amis' memoir, 'Experience' [1999]), who later wrote some of the most sensitive and penetrating criticism of 'Lolita'. Could the young Amis have read this particular (and clearly well-read) copy? (Artemis Cooper, 'Elizabeth Jane Howard: A Dangerous Innocence', [London: 2016]; Janet Watts, 'Elizabeth Jane Howard Obituary', [Guardian: 2 January, 2014]; the UK first of 'Lolita' is omitted by Andrew Field in his Nabokov bibliography). Further details and images for any of the items listed are available on request. Lucius Books welcomes direct contact with our customers.
Seller: LUCIUS BOOKS (ABA, ILAB, PBFA), York, United Kingdom
Price: US$318.01 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Green semi-stiff wrappers, titled in black. Original price of 2,400 francs on back covers. 'Not to be sold in U.S.A., U.K., or Philippines.' The last two volume edition. A very good set indeed. The Traveller's Companion Series No.66
Seller: Collinge & Clark, London, United Kingdom
VLADIMIR NABOKOV. LOLITA, COMPLETE IN TWO VOLUMES. THE OLYMPIA PRESS, PARIS, 1959.
Price: US$330.73 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: THE THIRD PRINTING BOUND IN THE ORIGINAL GREEN CARD COVERS, BOTH HALF TITLES PRESENT, VOLUME ONE HAS THE 6 PAGE PUBLISHER'S DIGRESSION FIRST ADDED TO THE THIRD PRINTING IN APRIL OF 1959. EACH BOOK MEASURES APPROX 7 x 5 INCHES. FEW CREASES TO FRONT COVERS MOSTLY ON VOLUME 1 WITH A FEW SMALL INDENTATIONS TO FRONT COVER OF VOLUME 1, RUBBING AT TOP & BOTTOM OF SPINES WITH LIGHT BROWNING TO SPINES. OVERALL BOTH ARE VERY GOOD COPIES WITH PAGES CLEAN, NO INSCRIPTIONS & COVERS WELL ATTACHED. EXTRA POSTAGE COSTS MAY APPLY TO OVERSEAS ORDERS. ALL BOOKS POSTED IN STURDY BOOK BOX.
Seller: Elder Books, Ross on Wye, Herefordshire, United Kingdom
Lolita. Vladimir Nabokov. The Olympia Press, 1959.
Price: US$350.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Fourth printings of the first edition in the rare "stained glass" variant covers, complete in two volumes. With the Publisher's Digression - a six page introduction describing the problematic publishing history of the novel, and the debate over obscenity in literature. Nabokov's controversial masterpiece was turned down by numerous American and British publishers before he signed a contract in 1955 with Maurice Girodias's Olympia Press in Paris, notorious for essentially publishing pornography. It was subsequently banned in Britain, with the British Home Office ordering all copies entering the UK to be seized, and wouldn't see an American publication until 1958 and a U.K. until 1959. Paris: The Olmpia Press, 1955 (1959). Original wraps; vol 1: 190, [2 ads], vol 2: 221, [1]. Both volumes in very good or better condition. Bindings firm, light wear and rubbing to wraps, internally clean.
Seller: Kevin Sell, The Rare Book Sleuth, IOBA, Minneapolis, MN, U.S.A.
Price: US$350.00 + shipping
Description: 190pp. + 2pp. ads; 223pp. "Publisher's Digression" in Volume I. Green border on title page. Originally published by the Olympia Press in 1955, later reprinted as No. 66 in the Traveller's Companion series. Kearney 5.66.3. Paperback. Light shelfwear. Very Good
Seller: Alta-Glamour Inc., Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Price: US$402.50 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Fourth printing of the two volume Traveller's Companion Series No. 66 edition. Original price of 2,400 francs on back covers. Green paperbacks with slight wear to corners and edges of covers. White blemishes from sticker removal on front of Volume One and on the back of both volumes (please see photos). Interior pages clean and bright. Includes "Publisher's Digression" and foreword. Lolita was published by Olympia Press in France after being turned down by major American publishers because of its content. Though the content is still controversial, today the book is considered by many to be one of the finest novels written in the twentieth century .
Seller: Pistil Books Online, IOBA, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Price: US$460.00 + shipping
Condition: Near Fine
Description: Fourth printing of the two volume Traveller's Companion Series No. 66 edition. Original price of 2,400 francs on back covers. Green paperbacks with slight wear to corners and edges of covers. Interior pages clean and bright. Includes "Publisher's Digression" and foreword. Lolita was published by Olympia Press in France after being turned down by major American publishers because of its content. Though the content is still controversial, today the book is considered by many to be one of the finest novels written in the twentieth century .
Seller: Pistil Books Online, IOBA, Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Nabokov, Vladimir. Lolita. The Olympia Press, Paris, 1959.
Price: US$500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: Traveller's Companion series, No. 66. First Printing thus, thrd printing by this publisher of this title. Soft cover green wraps 223 pages in one volume.
Seller: J. Mercurio Books, Maps, & Prints IOBA, Garrison, NY, U.S.A.
vladimir nabokov. lolita. olympia press, paris, 1959.
Price: US$508.50 + shipping
Description: third printing, 1959. rejected by traditional american publishers, this infamous novel was first released in france by olympia press in 1955. it was then banned in in 1956 and republished again in 1959. this scarce edition was signature-bound in one volume with vibrant stained-glass wrappers picturing one of nabokov's beloved butterflies. paris: olympia press. 6.75x 4.25." 319 pages. bound in illustrated paper wrappers. book condition: lightest shelfwear. light reading crease. overall a lovely copy. near fine -.
Seller: leaves, Brooklyn, NY, U.S.A.
Burroughs, William S.. The Naked Lunch. Paris: The Olympia Press, 1959.
Price: US$1500.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition, first issue, with original price listed as "Francs 1.500" to rear wrapper (later issues have "18NF" price sticker). Original publisher's stiff green wrappers; original pictorial dust jacket designed by Burroughs. About near fine with some slight sunning, small bookseller stamp to front endpaper; dust jacket lightly nicked with minor wear, some shallow loss to the upper spine, otherwise clean and bright. A very good copy. The Naked Lunch was first published in Paris as part of The Olympia Press's The Traveller's Companion series, which included other literary classics like Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1955) and Henry Miller's Quiet Days in Clichy (1956), among others. The Olympia Press was well known for its liberal selection of literature; many English-speaking authors published their books with Olympia in Paris after being rejected by other publishing houses. Even so, Olympia's publisher Maurice Girdoias did not initially want to publish the racy The Naked Lunch, but changed his mind after selections from the novel appeared in literary magazines, including The Chicago Review. The chapters in The Naked Lunch are a series of vignettes, intended to be read independently of one another, that follow drug addict William Lee as he travels to a variety of locations; each story is loosely based on Burroughs' own experiences with drugs in these locations. As John Ciardi commented in his June 27, 1959 review for The Saturday Review, "what Burroughs is writing about is not only the destruction of depraved men by their drug lust, but the destruction of all men by their consuming addictions, whether the addiction be drugs or overrighteous propriety, lasciviousness or sixteen-year-old girls."
Seller: B & B Rare Books, Ltd., ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.
NABOKOV, Vladimir.. Lolita.. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1959, 1959.
Price: US$1749.03 + shipping
Description: First UK edition, first impression. Lolita was first published by the Olympia Press in Paris in 1955 after Nabokov was unable to find an American publisher brave enough to accept the work. 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. Kingsley Amis, writing for The Spectator in 1959, remarked on the almost immediate cult-status of the novel in the UK: "Few books published in this country since the King James Bible can have set up more eager expectation than Lolita, nor, on the other hand, can any work have been much better known in advance to its potential audience". Juliar A28.3. For Amis, Kirsch, and Prescott, see "Sick, Scandalous, Spectacular: The First Reviews of Lolita", Literary Hub, 18 Aug. 2020. Octavo. Finely bound by the Chelsea Bindery in red morocco, spine lettered and decorated in gilt, raised bands, single rule to boards gilt, twin rule to turn-ins gilt, black and white patterned endpapers, gilt edges. A fine copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom
Burroughs, William S.. The Naked Lunch. Paris: The Olympia Press, 1959.
Price: US$3000.00 + shipping
Condition: Very Good
Description: First edition, first issue, with original price listed as "Francs 1.500" to rear wrapper (later issues have "18NF" price sticker). Original publisher's stiff green wrappers; original black, white, purple, and yellow pictorial dust jacket designed by Burroughs. Near fine book with light soiling and spotting to text block edges, a hint of fading to top of rear wrapper, and a touch of wear to foot of spine; unclipped dust jacket with just a hint of spotting to verso, else fine. Overall, an excellent copy in a bright and crisp dust jacket, much nicer than usual. Housed in a red custom folding box. Maynard & Miles A2. The Naked Lunch was first published in Paris as part of The Olympia Press's The Traveller's Companion series, which included other literary classics like Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita (1955) and Henry Miller's Quiet Days in Clichy (1956), among others. The Olympia Press was well known for its liberal selection of literature; many English-speaking authors published their books with Olympia in Paris after being rejected by other publishing houses. Even so, Olympia's publisher Maurice Girodias did not initially want to publish the racy The Naked Lunch, but changed his mind after selections from the novel appeared in literary magazines, including The Chicago Review. The chapters in The Naked Lunch are a series of vignettes, intended to be read independently of one another, that follow drug addict William Lee as he travels to a variety of locations; each story is loosely based on Burroughs' own experiences with drugs in these locations. As John Ciardi commented in his June 27, 1959 review for The Saturday Review, "what Burroughs is writing about is not only the destruction of depraved men by their drug lust, but the destruction of all men by their consuming addictions, whether the addiction be drugs or overrighteous propriety, lasciviousness or sixteen-year-old girls."
Seller: B & B Rare Books, Ltd., ABAA, New York, NY, U.S.A.