Vladimir Nabokov
TO: MAURICE GIRODIAS
CC, 2 pp.
Ithaca, N.Y.
August 3, 1957
Dear Mr. Girodias,
Many thanks for your kind letter. I was interested to learn about your negotiations with British editors. I had asked Mr. Knittel of Jonathan Cape to get in touch with you. If he did not it may mean they, too, were frightened away by the risks. In June, I have been approached by Bodley Head. They want a long-term option, but they offer an advance which they would be willing to forfeit if they did not publish within the delay. If you are willing to discuss this offer, I shall ask them to get in touch with you. Please let me know your reaction for I must answer them. They asked for a delay of "two or three" years, and therefore would probably agree to make it two years.
I do not think you are quite right about Doubleday and about the whole question of option and delay of publication. The situation here is extremely delicate. Doubleday have chosen the passages from LOLITA for the Anchor Review with the help of their lawyers, who in two instances made them change their choice of text. These lawyers have now been consulted as to the prospects of a complete edition; they have advised against it for the present. As you probably know, the Supreme Court has just handed down some very disappointing decisions. Although the cases judged were far removed from LOLITA's case, the important thing is that the Court did not bother with the definition of the term "obscenity", and did not take any measures against local censorship. This means that any small-town postmaster can set in motion the machine of censorship, starting the case on its way from Court to Court, until it reached the Supreme Court, which probably (though by no means certainly) would exonerate my book.
I assure you that in spite of it Doubleday's interest is very real. The reason they want an option is to be prepared to publish the moment a favorable break in the situation allows it. Of this I am certain. I agree with you that some delay should be established. I also believe that a more substantial advance than the one they offered should be asked. On the other hand, there is no doubt, unfortunately, that no publisher, who is big enough to handle the matter properly, will consider acceptable the terms you suggested to Doubleday. Incidentally, I think you are wrong in your assumption that Doubleday would not be prepared to defend the book. It was mentioned (and I am convinced that a clause to this purpose should be included in any agreement with either an American or a British publisher) that they would have to assume an obligation to defend the book before the Courts, carrying the proceedings, if need be, all the way to the Supreme Court. An important consideration is, too, that Doubleday think of me as of one of "their" authors. They have acquired two more books from me, and will do more than any other publisher to "push" LOLITA, which would be as much to your advantage as to mine (or theirs). For all these reasons I am sorry that you so resolutely rejected their offer.
I was sorry to learn that your lawsuit was postponed. On the other hand, if Gallimard publishes the French translation in the early fall, it may help the outcome. So let us hope for the best.
Please, do keep in touch with me. I am positive that LOLITA is the best thing I have written so far; I shall be always grateful to you for having published it. It would be an awful shame if some false move prevented you and me from enjoying some profit from it.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: EVAN OBOLENSKY
CC, 1 p.
Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY.
August 7, 1957
Dear Prince Obolensky,
If you are still interested in LOLITA would you care to get in touch with Olympia?
Here is the situation. Olympia has the English-language rights (no licensing right, so I would have to approve the final arrangements). Mr. M. Girodias, Olympia's owner, is a difficult person. I suggest (provided, of course, that you still want to publish the book in this country) that you make it clear to him from the start that you are prepared to defend the book in the American Courts, the Supreme Court included, and that you would publish immediately.
I would be delighted if you could come to terms with the man. His address is 8, rue de Nesle, Paris VI. Of late he has been writing me from 7, rue St. Severin. Paris V, so maybe this is the one to use.
I was sorry to miss your party. I thank you for sending me your two books. They are very handsomely presented. I hope to find time soon to read THE END OF PITY.1 The other one I know from having read it in MS.
Sincerely,
Vladimir Nabokov
FROM: WALTER J. MINTON1
TLS, 1 p.
August 30, 1957
Dear Mr. Nabokov:
Being a rather backward example of that rather backward species, the American publisher, it was only recently that I began to hear about a book called LOLITA. Since then we have heard much and read much. Briefly, I am wondering if the book is available for publication and if, as I have heard, the Olympia Press controls all English rights, we have your blessing to negotiate with them. I realize that there are distinct obligations to Doubleday and I would not wish to intrude on already established relationships.
Sincerely,
Walter J. Minton
TO: WALTER J. MINTON
CC, 1 p.
Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y.
Sept. 7, 1957
Dear Mr. Minton,
Thanks for your nice letter. There is nothing to prevent you from negotiating with Olympia. They control the English rights, you are right. I might add that my contract with them does not contain a clause on licensing, so, as I see it, I would have to give my approval to the final arrangements.
Mr. Girodias, the owner of Olympia, is a rather difficult person. I shall be delighted if you come to terms with him.
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: ELENA SIKORSKI
ALS, 2 pp. Elena Sikorski.
Ithaca, N. Y.
14 September 1957
My dear Elenochka,
After Olga's letter yours was, in a certain sense, a relief. Yes, of course you did the right thing. When a new vacuum forms,1 the recollections immediately rush in, and one senses with increased intensity the eternal oppression of the past. Only recently! had still hoped to see our poor E.K. again—over here our American oldsters live to be 97, and walk five miles a day with a pedometer. I recall every detail of her first summer with us, the postman for whom she would wait by the "mill" escarpment behind the oldest lilacs of the garden, so she could bring Mother a letter of Father's as quickly as possible, and how Aunt Katya was jealous, and then, immediately after, came the Crimea, London, Berlin, Prague....
As far as help for Olga is concerned, I shall do whatever you think necessary; as for Rostislav (unless he intends to study something in particular a little more), he must select an office job or some other kind of work and try to hold on to it. In my opinion the theatre (if one has acting talent, of course) is no worse that any other career, especially since in Soviet circumstances that is one of the ways to retain a semblance of independence; and, since the first two or three years may be unremunerative and difficult, wouldn't it be advisable to give him a little help in the beginning? Let me know what you think about it, and to what degree his theatrical inclinations are serious.
With regard to Sonia2—we weren't certain until the end whether she would make it to Switzerland and when, and exactly where. Vera and I are very glad you got together. She wrote us about all of you: she fell in love with Zhikochka and the way he speaks Russian. She described your apartment, his arsenal, and much else. It was all very interesting for us.
Mityusha comes home from his Army service fairly often, usually by airplane, and the first time he walked in with his elegant uniform I remembered Yurik.3 He went through eight weeks of basic training with flying colors, crawled beneath real machine-gun fire, commanded a platoon,4 led it on nigh
ttime maneuvers in the woods, etc. As a reward he got a soft berth in New York—twice a week he meets military transports at the pier.
My Lolita has come out in Danish and in Swedish. I hope that I can finally, finally finish my monstrous Pushkin. After the notes about Eug. Onegin in Noviy Zhurnal there will be further ones in Op'it'i. I am tired of this "bookish exploit", as my patient used to put it. Véra embraces you and commiserates deeply.
Keep well, my dearest, give our regards to your husband and a kiss to your son.
V.5
TO: WALTER J. MINTON
CC, 1 p.
Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y.
September 19, 1957
Dear Mr. Minton,
The fall term at Cornell is about to begin and my husband asks me to answer your letter for him, since he could not do it himself right now.
At the time Olympia Press published LOLITA, there was no choice for my husband but to accept their conditions: 10% for the first 10.000 copies, 12% after 10.000. Mr. Girodias being of a somewhat ogreish disposition, there is but slight chance of bettering this unfortunate agreement. So my husband would like to leave it to you to see what you can do.
He says it would be unethical for him not to warn you that he knows Mr. Girodias is at the moment in touch with one or two American publishers. He hopes this will not discourage you.
Sincerely,
(Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)
TO: MAURICE GIRODIAS
CC, 1 p.
Ithaca, N.Y.
October 5, 1957
Registered Airmail
Dear Mr. Girodias,
In view of your failure to submit your statement and to pay me as required by paragraph 9 of our Agreement, I regret to inform you that I am now invoking paragraph 8 of said Agreement and am exercising my right to declare the Agreement between us null and void, and that all rights granted under the Agreement revert to me.1
Yours truly,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: CARL BJÖRKMAN1
CC, 1 p.
Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY., USA
October 8, 1957
Dear Mr. Björkman,
I was glad to see from your letter that you have ordered a complete, unabridged translation of LOLITA to be prepared and were going to recall all the unsold copies of the first edition. These, of course, must be immediately destroyed.
I note with satisfaction that the new translation will be submitted to me for approval before publication.
I am afraid you are mistaken in your evaluation of the cuts and contractions your translator made in LOLITA. The size of the pages is non-essential. You can easily see this if you compare the number of pages in the two parts of the original with that of the two parts of the translation.
I must again voice my strongest objection to any attempts at "adjustments". There are no "recapitulations" in the second part and I must insist that in such cases the author is the best judge. I trust I may assume now that we are agreed LOLITA is to be published in Swedish in an exact, complete translation, without any rearrangements, additions or paraphrases whatsoever.
I hope you are now in a position to tell me that the original Swedish edition has been withdrawn from circulation.
Yours truly,
Vladimir Nabokov
PS. I would like to assume that the above provisions will be also applied by you to the translation of PNIN. If you have not yet committed yourself, perhaps you might want to entrust this translation to Mme Ellen Rydelius, if she still occupies herself with translations. She made a very satisfactory translation of a novel of mine,2 published by Bonniers in 1936 under the title HAN SOM SPELADE SCHACK MED LIVET.
TO: JASON EPSTEIN
CC, 1 p.
Ithaca, N.Y.
Oct. 13, 1957
Dear Jason,
The cover copy1 is all right with the exception of the end of the middle paragraph. I am enclosing a copy of your copy with that sentence slightly revised.
Many thanks for your kind invitation. We shall be in New York on Friday and Saturday, and shall drive back to Ithaca on Sunday the 3rd.
Obolensky offered a flat rate of 15% and found some way to satisfy Girodias besides as to his outlay. You know that I would have preferred you to publish LOLITA, but your negotiations with Girodias were definitely suspended. Simon and Shuster notified me that their lawyers had advised them against publishing LOLITA. Putnams never came through with the offer they had announced they would make. The only standing offer was that of Obolensky, and he managed, moreover, to subdue Girodias. So there was no choice but accept.
How are the sales of the ANCHOR REVIEW? Has the landmark of 50.000 been reached?
Have you been hearing from Heinemann? I hope they will send you the reviews.2 Did Lady Avebury finally write her essay? And finally, could you remind them to send their advance which was due on publication?
I would like to ask for a short delay with the collection of stories.
I shall send them to you sometime in the course of November, if this is all right.
Love to both of you.
As ever,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: IVAN OBOLENSKY
CC, 2 pp.
Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, N.Y.
November 5, 1957
Dear Prince Obolensky,
My wife and I enjoyed very much seeing you again and meeting Mr. McDowell. It was most kind of you to make twice the trip to Poughkeepsie to get us and to bring us back. The whole visit was a pleasure.
I cannot get the man here to make a photostat of the letters fast enough, so we have prepared a copy of the pertinent passages. Passage 2 from Mr. G.'s letter and the excerpt from my own letter refer to the matter of the deferred statement. Passage 1 from G.'s letter mentions the sale of "a few hundred" copies, whereas his statement has only 170 copies sold during April-June (and only 19 copies for the period January-April!) But then he also mentions that he had to buy back copies on which he had already paid a royalty. In other words, he creates a certain confusion making it impossible to control his declarations.
Another odd detail is that there is a considerable discrepancy between the prices of Frs. 2.400 and $7.50, and my royalty is computed on the basis of the Frs. 2.400. The agreement says that the royalty is to be computed from "the published price". But that was (originally) Frs. 1.800 (the two vols.); yet the royalty is computed from the price of 2.400. Olympia thus recognizes that I am entitled to get my share of their new price. However, the $7.50 certainly is not equivalent to Frs. 2.400.
All this is an awful nuisance. Still, my friends whom I consulted in New York advise me against a lawsuit, unless a perfectly clear case can be derived from the very wording of the agreement (the clause concerning the annullment of the contract). They are even more definitely convinced that under no circumstances should I allow myself to be involved in "arbitration", the reasons being the same that Mr. McDowell mentioned during our discussion. Finally, I am told on all sides that time is of the essence and that if much more time is allowed to pass before LOLITA is published, the interest of "the reading public" may wane. This is why I am rushing the enclosed material to you; I hope you too will send it at once to your advisers' office in Paris.
I wish to mention one further circumstance: my agent writes me that G. threatens to go back to his original scheme and publish the book here under his own imprint. I am telling her that I am not intimidated since it would not be difficult to stop the sales here if he published without my consent after I had notified him that I considered my agreement with Olympia void.
And finally: the situation being what it is I did not raise any questions which would arise if publication of LOLITA became imminent. I would like nevertheless to mention that while I consider the royalty you offer as very generous, I would want a rather more substantial advance than the on
e you offered to Mr. G. I prefer to say this now since I would not want you to undertake any steps in behalf of LOLITA under the impression that we were agreed on this point.
With best wishes,
Sincerely yours,
Vladimir Nabokov
TO: CARL BJÖRKMAN
CC, 2 PP.
Goldwin Smith Hall
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY., USA.
November 11, 1957
Dear Mr. Bjorkman,
I have received your new version of LOLITA, Part II, and am returning it to you under separate cover.
While I appreciate your effort to improve the translation and note that many passages omitted in your first edition have been restored, I am distressed to say that the translation remains a sorry mess. In its present condition it would take weeks to correct it and there is hardly any sense in my pointing out to you its innumerable errors, blunders, mistranslations—and, alas, remaining omissions. Here are a few, just to give you an idea of the thing.
p.2. madamic is rendered in Swedish as torgmadammiga. Actually, a "madam" means a woman who runs a brothel.
p. 12. an orchestra of zootsuiters with trumpets is rendered as an "evinnerliga orkester". If the translator was incapable of finding some equivalent he could at least have said a "jazz band".
Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters 1940-1977 Page 21