2 volumes, 8vo. Original green printed wrappers (spines toned, some light rubbing to extremities); morocco-backed folding case. Provenance: David Gerstein (ownership signatures on front free endpapers).

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with printed price "Francs: 900" on back cover. Nabokov's controversial novel was rejected by American publishers, all of whom feared the repercussions of publishing such a "pornographic" work. It was finally accepted by the avant-garde Olympia Press in Paris and published in this two-volume edition. The first edition sold out quickly, but it was not warmly received abroad: alarmed by Graham Greene's assessment of Lolita as "one of the three best books of 1955," the English government pressured the French to ban the novel, and it was not published in America until 1958. Lolita is ranked fourth on the Modern Library's list of 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century. Juliar A28.1.1, issue a.