LOLITA: A SCREENPLAY - INSCRIBED TO IRVING LAZAR
New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1974. First Edition. A monumental association copy of Nabokov's own adaptation for the film version of his 1955 novel. The recipient, Irving Paul Lazar (1907-1933), was a legendary talent agent and dealmaker who represented both the Hollywood elite, and a stable of authors that included Nabokov, Ernest Hemingway, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Larry McMurtry, William Saroyan, and others. In July of 1959, Nabokov was approached by Stanley Kubrick and James Harris, who had acquired the film rights to Lolita, to write the screenplay. Over the next year, he painstakingly wrote and re-wrote the screenplay until delivering his 400pp draft to Kubrick and Harris in the summer of 1960. "At one point, Kubrick told Nabokov that the screenplay was "much too unwieldy, contained too many unnecessary episodes, and would take about seven hours to run." Nabokov put the screenplay on a crash diet and submitted his final version on 8-Sep-1960. Harris and Kubrick called it the best screenplay ever written in Hollywood" (see Juliar A45).
In his foreword to this volume, Nabokov concurs that Kubrick was a talented director, and that his Lolita was a first-rate film, but felt that he only used "ragged odds and ends" of his intended version, which "certainly made the picture as unfaithful to the original script as an American poet's translation from Rimbaud or Pasternak...My first reaction to the picture was a mixture of aggravation, regret, and reluctant pleasure...I keenly regretted the waste of my time while admiring Kubrick's fortitude in enduring for six months the evolution and infliction of a useless product" (p.xiii). The film was released to great acclaim in 1962, with Nabokov nominated for an Academy Award for Best Screenplay. It was largely through Lazar's tireless efforts over the next decade that Nabokov was finally able to publish his own version of the screenplay, successfully securing a release from Kubrick in 1972. As a token of his affection for Lazar, Nabokov gifted him a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses in 1966 (similar to the pair Sue Lyon wore in the film), which became part of the centennial exhibition Nabokov Under Glass, held at NYPL in 1999.
Nabokov was generally hesitant to inscribe books, and this hesitance was magnified after the raging success of Lolita. Presentation copies of Lolita: A Screenplay are uncommon, with no copies found in the auction record, and the only copy known to us being the dedication copy, inscribed to his wife Vera. Juliar A45.1. Item #6176
First Printing. Octavo (22cm); black cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine and in blind to front cover; dustjacket; xiv,213,[1]pp. Inscribed by Nabokov on the half-title page to his agent, Irving Lazar, and his wife Mary, incorporating a drawing of five colored butterflies: "For Irving and Mary / from Vladimir Nabokov / with his best / Montreux / early May 1974." Gentle sunning to spine ends and upper board edges, discreet repair to gutter between front endpaper and half-title page, with two small scuffs to lower edge of front board; Very Good+ or better. In a supplied dustjacket, unclipped (priced $7.95), lightly edgeworn and a little dust-soiled, with a few tiny tears, and faint discoloration along upper edge of front flap on verso; Very Good+. Housed in a custom clamshell case.
Price: $37,500.00