Racy addition to UGA's collection of rare books

Gasp! A first edition of 'Lolita'

Sidney Thomas, an avid book collector and reader, recently donated a first edition copy of "Lolita" to the University of Georgia library.

A first edition copy of "Lolita" was donated to the University of Georgia by Sidney Thomas. Thomas collects first edition books.
Tricia Spaulding /Staff

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By Lee Shearer | lee.shearer@onlineathens.com | Story updated at 11:55 PM on Saturday, June 21, 2008

Sidney Thomas has donated many books to the University of Georgia library, but none has created a stir like one of his latest gifts - a first edition of Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," printed more than 50 years ago by a French publishing house.

He paid about $6 for the two-volume paperback in 1957, said Thomas, an Athens native and a Phi Beta Kappa UGA graduate. It's worth about $10,000 now.
Thomas, 85, was working as a civilian librarian for the U.S. Air Force at Ramstein Air Base in Germany when he read that the book had been banned in France, he recalled recently.

He wanted it right away.

"I said 'Oh, boy!' " he said. "You just didn't expect a novel to be banned in France."

When Thomas asked a clerk at a Paris book shop if the store had a copy, a clerk pulled it from under the counter and handed it to him.

But when Thomas started to leaf through the pages, the clerk snatched it away lest the wrong eyes see it and stowed it back under the counter.

"Do you want it?" the clerk asked in a low voice.

Thomas did, and half a century later the UGA library now owns one of just 5,000 first editions of what some scholars consider one of the best English-language novels of the 20th century.

The book chronicles a middle-aged intellectual's sexual obsession with a precocious 12-year-old girl.

Thomas, a retired librarian himself, traces his donations and large book collection to a love of reading that began in childhood, when he would spend hours reading in a favorite place in his family's Cobb Street home.

"I couldn't wait to get in that glider on the porch," he said.

[ ... ]

Thomas also has given hundreds of first editions of books by some of the 20th century's greatest writers. The books include first editions of books by William Gaddis, V.S. Naipaul, Saul Bellow, Graham Greene and many other notable 20th century fiction writers - books Thomas bought to read, not just to collect.

"What do people do who don't like to read?" he asked.

But first editions like Thomas' copy of "Lolita" have value beyond great writing, Potter said.

"To actually have a copy purchased by someone who was in Paris at that time is phenomenal," Potter said. "Something that really was immediately off the press makes an impact with students."

The first editions Thomas has given the library are little pieces of history and often works of art, said Chuck Barber, assistant head of UGA's Hargrett Rare Books and Manuscript Library, the new home for "Lolita."

"They're good for what's inside, but they're also nice as artifacts," Barber said.

Thomas, still a voracious reader, is never at a loss waiting in a doctor's office. He just reads the book he's brought with him.

"I love being trapped. All at once, you've got this island of time," Thomas said.

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