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Hugh Hefner acquires rights to Vladimir Nabokov's unfinished novella 'The Original of Laura'
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A happy marriage - Hefner and Nabokov. Both famous, both sexually scandalous, and one now has the right's to the other's work.
And so it is - Playboy has acquired the first serial rights to The Original of Laura, the late Vladimir Nabokov's final work.
Publisher Knopf had originally secured the rights for an undisclosed sum from the Nabokov estate, led by Vladimir's son Dmitri Nabokov, who had a change of heart this spring against his father's dying demands not to publish 'Laura.'
A release date is set for November, 2009.
The deal began when Andrew Wylie, literary agent to Nabokov, began corresponding with the pushy Playboy players, including one Amy Grace Loyd, Playboy’s literary editor since 2005. Loyd desperately wanted the rights to Nabokov's posthumous writings, and was willing to go out on a limb for the reluctant Wylie.
“It was part of my pitch to Andrew that Nabokov really liked publishing with Playboy, and how devoted Hef is to Nabokov and his legacy,” Ms. Loyd said.
In her tireless courting efforts, Loyd devised a thorough plan to convince Wylie that Playboy was worthy and relevant to Nabokov's literary brilliance. Loyd curated a special feature marking the 50th anniversary of Nabokov’s Lolita and sent Wylie orchids reminiscent of themes used in Nabokov’s 1969 novel Ada, or Ardor, which Playboy featured as an excerpt at the time. Loyd's persistent power plays went unnoticed until finally Wylie inquired about what Playboy might be willing to offer for full, exclusive rights to the highly anticipated "Laura." The amount of the deal is still unknown.
“He said he wasn’t sure that Playboy was the place to launch the novel in the United States. But I was very persistent, as I often am, and I try forcibly to remind people of our literary history because it is very easy for people to dismiss us...I’m happy to tell you we’ve never paid this much for a book excerpt before, ever...” Ms. Loyd said.
Playboy will publish a 5,000 word exclusive excerpt to run in their November 2009 issue.
Lolita was originally rejected by five American publishers, fearing obscenity charges for it's graphic sexual content. It was eventually published in France in 1955 by Olympia Press, well known at the time for publishing mostly pornography. When it reached America in 1958 it became an immediate hit.
Playboy, of course, started as a gentleman's magazine in Chicago by Hugh Hefner in 1953. The magazine has a long history of publishing short stories by such novelists as Arthur C. Clarke, Ian Fleming, and Margaret Atwood. The novel Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, was also serialized in the March, April, and May 1954 issues.
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