Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial 1955 novel Lolita, inscribed to William James, Jr. and his wife Alice comes up at Christie’s‘ latest Fine Printed Books and Manuscripts including Americana this week with a particularly unusual inscription.
Published by The Olypmia Press in Paris and with an estimate of $80,000 – $120,000, this presentation copy of the first edition, first printing, is inscribed with a butterfly to his close Cambridge friends: “For Alice and Billy from V / 23 April 1956.” According to Christie’s it is one of only three inscribed copies of the first edition of Lolita to be recorded at auction.
William James Jr. was the nephew of the novelist Henry James and became friends with Vladimir and his wife Véra in Cambridge through mutual friends Harry and Elena Levin. The Nabokovs’ social circle during his time teaching in New England included Mary McCarthy, Richard Wilbur, May Sarton, Arthur Schlesinger, Allen Tate, Elizabeth Bowen, Richard Ellman, and Adrienne Rich. Vladimir Nabokov described James as “a dear soul with an admirable delicacy of string-tone”.
The online auction runs January 14 through January 28.
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