News of the new movie version of Lolita, starring Jeremy Irons as Humbert Humbert and about to begin filming in North Carolina, has caused me to recall my own odd involvement with the book, in the months before Vladimir Nabokov's masterpiece was first published in the United States. Part of the myth surrounding the novel is the notion that Bennett Cerf, the co-owner of Random House, was one of the group of hapless publishers (others being Douglas Black of Doubleday; Roger Straus of Farrar, Straus & Young; and Max Schuster) who so lacked foresight, or were so timid in the face of Lolita’s ostensibly salacious subject matter, that they missed out on one of the great publishing coups of all times. But Cerf, at least, has to be excused from this group, since his failure to publish the book was not one of either will or vision but was due to his being hamstrung by a corporate decree of his own devising.
I first read Lolita in 1957, in the original Olympia Press edition, published in Paris by Maurice Girodias; the twin green volumes had been smuggled through New York customs by a friend of mine, the theatrical producer Lewis Allen. That Lolita was published by the firm that also brought out such incandescent titles as White Thighs, With Open Mouth, and The Sexual Life of Robinson Crusoe helped create a notoriety that Nabokov rightly deplored but which did in fact contribute to the widespread impression that the novel was unfit to be read by decent Americans. Publishers all over New York shunned the work. The book, of course, is a sidesplitting and heartbreaking triumph, and entirely filth-free; Allen and I were so smitten by Humbert Humbert's sublime obsession that we toyed with the idea of trying to persuade Nabokov to let us publish Lolita in a private edition, and to hell with the obscenity laws. But financial problems sent me instead to Bennett Cerf, who had recently become my publisher.
Not long before this, Bennett had named a new editor-in-chief, Hiram Haydn. A sophisticated and rather scholarly man, Haydn had brought me along from Bobbs-Merrill, where he had edited my first novel, Lie Down in Darkness, and where he had fought valiantly and more or less successfully against the company bluenoses, based in the Indianapolis home office, who had objected to my fairly tame sexual tableaux and occasionally crude language. Cerf greatly respected Haydn. For the first time during his presidency of Random House, Bennett had bestowed on an editor absolute autonomy, and so I was reasonably certain that, given Haydn's broadmindedness, Lolita would be a shoo-in for prompt and enthusiastic publication, even though I had had early qualms about Bennett. When I handed him the two volumes, he fingered them with gingerly distaste, shook his head, and murmured something like “Well, I don't know…dirty books.”
A week or so later, warm with pleasure and anticipation, I marched into Haydn's office in the old Villard mansion, on Madison Avenue. Before I could utter a word, Hiram rose from his desk, his face actually blue with rage. “That loathsome novel will be published over my dead body!” he roared. Dumbfounded, I asked him what in God's name had caused him to react this way to such a splendid literary achievement. He ranted and shouted, and when I asked him to explain, to please explain, the reason for his fury he replied that I, Bill Styron, knew full well that he, Hiram Haydn, had a daughter the age of the victim of Humbert Humbert's disgusting lust, and that when my own daughter was that age perhaps I'd understand the hatred a man might feel for Lolita. For some reason, I was not angry with Hiram. It was an outburst that revealed the power of art's sometimes terrifying menace.
I fled to the office next door, where Bennett, his pipe propped against his cheek, was gazing desolately into the distance. “That novel is a masterpiece,” he said, in a choked voice, “but I can't budge the man. He said if I overruled him he'd quit.” He paused, then added, “What a wonderful book!” His eyes had the look of one who had divined the wretched future: Lolita published by some second-rate outfit like Putnam; ecstatic reviews; week after week at the top of the best-seller lists; and any new works of Vladimir Nabokov forever lost to Random House.
[New Yorker, September 4, 1995.]