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Message: [QUOTE="connie, post: 2367531, member: 7882"] While I generally may find a forward, preface, etc. of interest, I do agree with you in spirit. The preface to [I]Lolita [/I]is quite different from most, however, because it is itself a part of the fiction. That is to say, it is presented by a fictitious editor of "the work" ("John Ray, Jr., PhD") who explains that the work of "the author" (Humbert) was given to the editor by Humbert's lawyer, for posthumous publication. Among the remarkable features of this preface is that it reveals (a mere two paragraphs into the book) not only that the fictional narrator of the work we are about to read is already dead, but also that the subject of the narrator's obsession and the titular character (Lolita) has also died (both, within months of the events that conclude the novel). That Lolita dies after such an ordeal, so young, and in childbirth no less, is just one of the many heartbreaking aspects of the novel. Of course, the reader cannot know that upon first cracking open the book. Indeed, it is not uncommon for the first-time reader to miss this revealing detail regarding Lolita's death, flagged on the very first page. [/QUOTE]