After Vladimir Nabokov finished Lolita in 1954, it was rejected by five publishers on the basis of overt sexual content. According to critics, the novel appeared to be vulgar in its context of the personal thoughts of a pedophile (Sova, 109). It diverged from the common trait of offensive language that previously banned books, on the basis of sexual content, in the twentieth century participated (Ladenson, 188). Also, unlike other classics that have been banned, the subject of it’s banning has only became more taboo in the past half a century since it’s publication (188). Due to it’s unfamiliar nature, Pascal Covici of Viking Press, Wallace Brockway of Simon and Schuster, James Laughlin of New Directions, Jason Epstein of Doubleday and Roger Straus of Farrar, Straus &Young all rejected the manuscript (Appel, xxxiii). The publishers were weary of taking on the novel and running into costly legal complications. Straus originally accepted, but refused when Nabokov requested that the novel be released under an assumed name in order to continue teaching English Literature at Cornell because, assuming that the novel would be taken to court, there would be no hope of redemption if the author did not reveal himself (Ladenson, 206).
After rejection in The United States, Lolita was sent by to France in 1955. It was published in English by Maurice Girodias of Olympia Press and was subsequently banned in December 1956 (Sova, 109). Lolita became the only novel to ever be banned in France without being banned in The United States first (Ladenson, 188). Olympia Press was known to publish pornographic novels to finance it’s publication of fine art novels, and Girodias enthusiastically believed Lolita to be a hybrid of the two genres. After discovering this opinion, Nabokov ensued in a fifteen year long legal battle to gain back the copy rights of his novel and never successfully did so (209).
The following year, Girodias won the legal case in the Administrative Tribunal of Paris, allowing the book back on shelves by January 1958 (Sova, 109). General Charles de Gaulle assumed power in 1958 after the Fourth Republic fell and the made a case to the Conseil d’Etat to have the book banned again (110). If it weren’t for Gallimard’s tentative publication of the French version of Lolita, Girodias would not have been able to sue the French government on the basis of equality between French and English citizens, as only the English Olympia edition was on trial and not the French Gallimard edition due to it’s impending publication (109).
In 1955, British Customs banned Lolita from entering England. While the book was in high demand by Publishers in England, in order for it to have a chance of being sucessful they had to wait for the Obscene Publications Bill to be passed in 1959 (Vickers, 52). This bill would allow literary merit to be taken into account should the book be placed on trial. Nigel Nicholson, publisher as well as member of parliament, was in support of Lolita’s debut in England; however, he was not reelected the following year for his position because his conservative followers disagreed with his decision to publish it out of his firm (Sova, 110).
In February 1957, United States customs declared Lolita was allowed across the boarder without regard to the flat refusal of publishers to administer the novel (110). It was only until the following year that G.P Putnam’s Sons took a chance and published it (110). Girodias’ demand of 62.5 percent of Nabokov’s royalties repelled two publishers from agreeing to an offer and thereby delayed the process of the novel’s debut (Vickers, 51). The reluctance of publishers to take on Lolita between this time proved to be a loss of revenue to the future publisher as the novel circulated throughout The United States illegally from the black market to dog-eared copies passed around by minors in high schools (Heinz, 55). Despite the wasted time, one hundred thousand copies were sold in the first three weeks of sales (Ladenson, 212). Within the next year the bans facing Lolita in England and France were lifted and the book was sold without court conflict in all three countries.

Works Cited
1. Heins, Marjorie. Not in Front of the Children. New York: Hill and Wang, 2001. Print.
2. Ladenson, Elisabeth. Dirt for Art’s Sake: Books on Trial From Madame Bovary to Lolita. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2007. Print.
3. Locke, Richard. Critical Children: The Use of Childhood in Ten Great Novels. New York: Columbia UP, 2011. Print.
4. Sova, Dawn B. Literature Suppressed on Sexual Grounds. New York, NY: Facts on File, 1998. Print.
5. Vickers, Graham. Chasing Lolita: How Popular Culture Corrupted Nabokov’s Little Girl All Over Again. Chicago, IL: Chicago Review, 2008. Print.
6. Nabokov, Vladimir Vladimirovich, and Alfred Appel. The Annotated Lolita. New York: Vintage, 1991. Print.