Lolita is the story of middle-aged European intellectual and sexual deviant, Humbert Humbert, and his American obsession: twelve-year-old Dolores Haze. The author, Nabokov, describes Humbert's complex plot to transform Lolita into his perfect lover, which is ultimately unsuccessful. The book is analyzed by many but understood by few.

To describe alluring young girls, Humbert coins the word "nymphet." The word has two derivations: the first from the Greek and Roman nature spirits, who were usually pictured as beautiful maidens dwelling in mountains, waters, and forests; the second from the entomologist's term for the young of an insect undergoing incomplete metamorphosis.