Vladimir Nabokov was born in Russia at the turn of the 20th century, but his family was forced to leave during the Bolshevik revolution. They lived in France and Germany until 1940, when fear of the advancing German troops drove them to the United States. In the US, Nabokov taught at Harvard and Cornell Universities and at Wellesley College. In 1955 he published "Lolita," his most famous novel, about a man in love with a 12-year-old girl. "Lolita" is considered by many scholars to be one of the best English-language novels of the 20th century. The list of authors influenced by Nabokov's work is longer than one of his books.
