A Reader's Guide to Nabokov's 'Lolita' [Hardcover]

One of the most fascinating and controversial novels of the twentieth century, Vladimir Nabokovs Lolita is renown for its innovative style and notorious for its subject matter and influence on popular culture. A Readers Guide to Nabokovs Lolita carries readers through the intricacies of Nabokovs work and helps them achieve a better understanding of his rich artistic design. The book opens with a detailed chronology of Nabokovs life and literary career. Chapters include an analysis of the novel, a discussion of its precursors in Nabokovs work and in world literature, an essay on the character of Dolly Haze (Humberts 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 Nabokovs classic work.Julian W. Connolly (Ph.D. Harvard University) 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.Abbreviations. Chronology of Nabokovs Life and Career. Chronology of Lolita. Preface. Chapter One. The Creation of Lolita. Notes. Chapter Two. The Precursors of Lolita. Notes. Chapter Three. Approaching Lolita. Notes. Chapter Four. Who Was Dolly Haze? Notes. Chapter Five. Humberts Memoir, Nabokovs Novel: A Readers Analysis. Foreword. Part One. Part Two. Notes. Chapter Six. Lolitas Afterlife: Critical and Cultural Responses. Critical Reception. Cultural Responses. Notes. A Guide to Further Reading in English. Index. The importance of this book lies in the way it succinctly summarizes critical viewpoints yet provides a fresh and accessible interpretation of the novel& [Connolly] never clalSJ