THERE CAN HAVE BEEN few books which have been so
widely discussed and so little read as Lolita. But no one so far seems to have noticed it has an odd literary ancestor in Christopher Isher- wood's Seascape With Figures. Isherwood's book, too, was not published in Britain, or indeed any- where in the original form. But in his autobio- graphy Lions and Shadows (published in 1938) he outlines the plot he intended to use, It had two central episodes in common with Lolita. A medical student and a rich athlete are both 'in love with a fourteen-year-old girl, and the novel ends with the defeated student killing the athlete with a poker. According to Isherwood. 'this last episode would have to be written as almost pure farce.' The book was finally sent to two publishers, both of whom rejected it. One said that it had 'a certain literary delicacy, but lacked sufficient punch.' Isherwood comments—'a pretty damning verdict, when your story ends with a murder.' Certainly no publisher has yet said that about Lolita. TALKING OF Leta (or That Book, as the Daily Express would say) I hear that one West End afternoon drinking club has invented a Lolita cocktail. It consists of a large jigger of fifty- year-old brandy and a small shot of twelve-year-
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