Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov - 1st UK Edition / 2nd Impression

First UK edition, second 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. Lolita topped best-seller lists upon its eventual publication in America in 1958; this UK edition followed a year later. "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" (Amis)