Lolita

novel by Nabokov

Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

Lolita, novel by Vladimir Nabokov, published in 1955 in France. Upon its American publication in 1958, Lolita created a cultural and literary sensation.

The novel is presented as the posthumously published memoirs of its antihero, Humbert Humbert. A European intellectual and pedophile, Humbert lusts obsessively after 12-year-old nymphet Lolita (real name, Dolores Haze), who becomes his willing inamorata. The work examines love in the light of lechery.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.