Translated by Perry Anderson

A leading German scholar reveals the secret history of Nabokov’s infamous novel.

Does it ring a bell? the first-person narrator, a cultivated man of middle age, looks back on the story of an amour fou. It all starts when, traveling abroad, he takes a room as a lodger. The moment he sees the daughter of the house, he is lost. She is a pre-teen, whose charms instantly enslave him. Heedless of her age, he becomes intimate with her. In the end she dies, and the narrator … marked by her forever … remains alone. The name of the girl supplies the title of the story: Lolita.

We know the girl and her story, and we know the title. But the author was Heinz von Eschwege, whose tale of Lolita appeared in 1916 under the pseudonym Heinz von Lichberg, forty years before Nabokov’s celebrated novel took the world by storm. Von Lichberg later became a prominent journalist in the Nazi era, and his youthful work faded from view. The Two Lolitas uncovers a remarkable series of parallels between the two works and their authors. Did Vladimir Nabokov, author of an imperishable Lolita who remained in Berlin until 1937, know of von Lichberg’s tale? And if so, did he adopt it consciously, or was this a classic case of “cryptoamnesia,” with the earlier tale existing for Nabokov as a hidden, unacknowledged memory?

In this extraordinary literary detective story, Michael Maar casts new light on the making of one of the most influential works of the twentieth century.

Praise for Bluebeard’s Chamber
“Germany’s most gifted literary critic of the younger generation.” — London Review of Books

“Michael Maar is an acute analyst and an elegant stylist …” — Times Literary Supplement

“Maar provides a fascinating study of a theme that recurs in virtually all of Mann’s works. Even those skeptical of Maar’s daring thesis will find this clear, concise analysis of the blood-guilt theme a valuable contribution. Highly recommended.” — Choice

“Bluebeard’s Chamber is a valuable contribution to our appreciation of the work of this uncanny genius, a quintessentially 19th-century figure whose writings captured so much of the troubled spirit of Europe in the 20th century and who continues to fascinate us in the 21st.” — CNN Money

Michael Maar lives in Berlin. He is a member of the Deutsche Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung and a visiting professor at Stanford University. His books include Warum Nabokov Harry Potter gemocht hätte and Die falsche Madeleine. His Bluebeard's Chamber is also available from Verso.

112 pages


Cloth
1 84467 038 4
£12.99 / US$23 / CAN$32