Enchanter : Penguin Modern Classics

The precursor to Nabokov's classic novel Lolita. •  A middle-aged man weds an unattractive widow in order to indulge his obsession with her daughter.  • A gem to be appreciated by any admirer of the most graceful and provocative literary craftsman. —Chicago TribuneThe unnamed protagonist of the story is outwardly a respectable and comfortable man; inside he churns at the pubescent femininity of certain girls. Rare girls – one in a thousand – whose coltish grace and subconscious flirtatiousness betray to his obsessed mind a very special bud on the moist verge of its bloom. Sitting on a park bench one day he is tantalized by the fleeting form of just such a girl roller-skating on a gravel path. His desire to be near this beauty burns in him and drives him to begin a courtship of the child’s pitiful mother – a course that can end only in the disintegration of his life. Over the years the idea of The Enchanter grew; it changed; it developed “claws and wings.” By 1953 it was ready to furnish the basic theme of Lolita.The Enchanter is entertaining independent of its Lolita connection. It is arch delicious and beautifully written. —Publishers Weekly