The fabulous vintage design blog Words and Eggs posted a compelling collection of Lolita Covers.
From Greater Than:
The Second Pass recently linked to this gallery of covers to different editions of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (as well as to this competition for people to give it their own design).
It’s certainly not a book that’s been universally well-served by designers. There are some covers that want to suggest Humbert Humbert’s lascivious gaze but, to avoid straying into the same morally reprehensible territory as Humbert himself, they do so with an image of a full-grown woman rather than a pre-pubescent girl. Others just have illustrations of fairly inept nymphets (there are some real grotesques in there). And there’s also some good design (as you’d hope in a collection of slightly more than 150 images).