It was 1958, and Fred Hills, a graduate student trying to earn some extra cash, was selling books at the Emporium department store in San Francisco. He picked up a copy of Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” which had just been published in the United States, and read the opening: “Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul.”Mr. Hills was so electrified that he paid the full retail price of $5 for the hardback, the first he had ever bought, apart from textbooks. He always remembered that first encounter with Nabokov with great fondness — and with astonishment that in time, he would become his editor. In the twilight of Nabokov’s career, Mr. Hills traveled to Zermatt, Switzerland, and between editing sessions on his last completed novel, “Look at the Harlequins!” (1974), the two went butterfly hunting together in the foothills of the Matterhorn.

Source: New York Times November 20, 2020 22:07 UTC