Sally’s rescue and, 127
search for Sally, 25–26, 40–43, 69
“Walk of Death” massacre, connections to, 95–98
Time (magazine), on Lolita’s popularity, 241–242
Trainer, Russell, 249
Troy, Ann, 90
Troy, Mary, 90
Unruh, Howard, 94–100, 99
Vineland Daily Journal
on car accident, 183, 186
on Sally’s rescue, 184
Volshebnik (Nabokov), 50, 51–54
“Walk of Death” massacre, 94–100
Wallace, Bruce, 145
Warner, Frank (La Salle alias), 19–20, 24–26
Warren, Earl, 139
Watson, Donald, 61
Weiner, Jacob, 131–132
Weld, Tuesday, 247
Welding, Peter, 217–221, 222–223
Wellesley College, 27, 29
White, Katharine, 151, 206, 207–208
Wildwood Leader, on car crash, 174
Wildwood trip, 169–173
Wilkie, John V., 61–63
Wilson, Edmund, 29–30, 206, 208–209
Wilson, Elena, 208
Wilson, Helen Matlack, 96
Wilson, John, 96
Winters, Shelley, 247
Woodrow Wilson High School, 163
Woods, Elmer B., 188
Woolworth’s, 15–16
Young, Marie, 184–185, 188
Zegrino, Helen, 96
Zegrino, Thomas, 96
Zenzinov, Vladimir, 102
About the Author
SARAH WEINMAN is the editor of Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s and Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives. She covers book publishing for Publishers Marketplace, and has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New Republic, the Guardian, and Buzzfeed, among other outlets. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Sarah Weinman
Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s
Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives: Stories from the Trailblazers of Domestic Suspense
Copyright
Permissions constitute a continuation of this copyright page.
THE REAL LOLITA. Copyright © 2018 by Sarah Weinman. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Cover design by Sara Wood
Cover image of Sally Horner after her rescue, March 1950, courtesy of the author
FIRST EDITION
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Weinman, Sarah, author.
Title: The real Lolita : the kidnapping of Sally Horner and the novel that scandalized the world / [by Sarah Weinman].
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : HarperCollins Publishers, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018006366 (print) | LCCN 2018021107 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062661944 (ebook) | ISBN 9780062861184 | ISBN 9780062661951 | ISBN 9780062661920 | ISBN 9780062661937
Subjects: LCSH: Horner, Sally. | Kidnapping—United States—Case studies. | Child abuse—United States—Case studies. | Captivity—United States—Case studies.
Classification: LCC HV6603.H67 (ebook) | LCC HV6603.H67 W45 2018 (print) | DDC 362.88092 [B]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006366
* * *
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-266194-4
Version 08242018
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-266192-0
Permissions
GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT IS MADE FOR PERMISSION TO REPRINT EXCERPTS FROM THE FOLLOWING BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS
The Gift by Vladimir Nabokov, copyright © 1963, copyright renewed 1991 by the Estate of Vladimir Nabokov. Used by permission of Vintage Books, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, and by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, copyright © 1955 by Vladimir Nabokov, copyright renewed 1983 by the Estate of Vladimir Nabokov. Used by permission of Vintage Books and by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited.
“Lilith,” from Selected Poems by Vladimir Nabokov, copyright © 2012 by The Estate of Vladimir Nabokov. Published in the United Kingdom as Collected Poems. Used by permission of Vintage Books and by permission of Penguin Random House UK.
The Stories of Vladimir Nabokov by Vladimir Nabokov, copyright © 1995 by Dmitri Nabokov. Published in the United Kingdom as Collected Stories, copyright © Article 3C under the will of Vladimir Nabokov, 1965, 1966. Used by permission of Vintage Books and by permission of The Orion Publishing Group, London.
The Enchanter by Vladimir Nabokov, copyright © 1986 by Dmitri Nabokov. Used by permission of The Wylie Agency.
Strong Opinions by Vladimir Nabokov, copyright © 1973 by Article 3C Trust under the will of Vladimir Nabokov. Used by permission of Vintage Books and by permission of The Wylie Agency (UK) Limited.
Nikolai Gogol by Vladimir Nabokov, copyright © 1944 by Vladimir Nabokov, renewed 1972 by Article 3C under the will of Vladimir Nabokov. Used by permission of The Wylie Agency and by permission of Penguin Random House UK.
Vladimir Nabokov: Selected Letters, 1940–1977, edited by Dmitri Nabokov and Matthew J. Bruccoli, copyright © 1989 by Article 3C under the will of Vladimir Nabokov. Used by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
IMAGES
Florence “Sally” Horner, age nine: Camden County Historical Society
Photograph of Sally discovered at the Atlantic City boardinghouse in August 1948, six weeks after her disappearance: International News Photos/courtesy of the author
Vladimir Nabokov holding a butterfly, 1947, at Harvard’s Museum of Comparative Zoology, where he was a fellow: Constantine Joffe for Vogue/Getty Images
Mug shot of Frank La Salle taken upon the start of his prison sentence for the statutory rape of five girls, 1943: New Jersey State Archives
Mitchell Cohen questions Howard Unruh in a hospital bed, September 7, 1949: Associated Press
Nabokov re-creating the process of writing Lolita on note cards: Carl Mydans, The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Ruth Janisch, ca. 1940s: Janisch family
Sally on the telephone to her family in the hours after her rescue: International News Photos/courtesy of the author
Sally Horner and Mitchell Cohen board a Philadelphia-bound United Airlines flight, March 31, 1950: Ernest K. Bennett/Associated Press
Sally sees her mother, Ella Horner, for the first time in twenty-one months: Associated Press
Sally leans on her mother’s shoulder minutes after being reunited: International News Photos/courtesy of the author
Frank La Salle, after pleading guilty: International News Photos/courtesy of the author
Sally Horner and her older sister, Susan Panaro, in the family greenhouse: Panaro/Chiemingo family archives
A candid shot of Sally holding a newspaper: Panaro/Chiemingo family archives
Véra and Nabokov chasing butterflies: Carl Mydans, The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Carol Starts, Sally Horner’s best friend, summer of 1952: Panaro/Chiemingo family archives
Edward Baker’s high school graduation photo, 1950: Vineland High School yearbook, retrieved via Ancestry.com
AP story of Sally Horner’s death transcribed onto a note card by Vladimir Nabokov: LOC note card, Box 2, Folder 14, Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov Papers
, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC
Image accompanying Peter Welding’s November 1963 article for Nugget: courtesy of the author
Sally Horner, age fifteen, summer of 1952: Panaro/Chiemingo family archives
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*In the original Russian, Albinus was called Bruno Kretchmar, while Margot’s name was Magda.
*I am withholding their last names to protect the privacy of their families, and because of the difficulty in locating descendants to verify the details.
*Not their real names.
*Nabokov settled upon the “Lolita” sobriquet for his heroine very late in the writing process. Before then her name was “Juanita Dark”—a sly, Spanishized reworking of Jeanne d’Arc, or Saint Joan.
*Oddly, Welding referred to the girl as “Florence ‘Sally’ Ann Horner.” It is a mystery why he gave her a middle name that was never reported and did not exist. The error continued to propagate, also cited by Alfred Appel, Jr., in The Annotated Lolita.
The Real Lolita Page 25