Sarah Weinman - The Real Lolita - The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel That Scandalized the World

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

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.

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 .