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Lolita
Humbert Humbert, a middle-aged European professor of French literature, arrives in Ramsdale, New Hampshire, searching for summer accommodation before his professorship begins at Beardsley College, Ohio. Charlotte Haze, a sexually frustrated widow, offers him a room to rent at her house. Initially uninterested, Humbert changes his mind when he sees Charlotte's young daughter Dolores, nicknamed "Lolita", and is immediately smitten with her.
Wanting Humbert's time for herself, Charlotte sends Dolores to an all-girl summer camp. After the Hazes depart for camp, the maid gives Humbert a love confession letter from Charlotte demanding that he vacate immediately, unless he reciprocates and marries her. Despite laughing while reading the letter, Humbert stays and marries Charlotte.
In Lolita's absence, Humbert becomes withdrawn, and Charlotte grows unfulfilled and upset. She discovers Humbert's diary detailing his passion for Dolores and his contempt for Charlotte. Distraught, she runs outside, is hit by a car and dies. Humbert is visited by Charlotte's friends, who mistake his apathy with suicidal ideation and reveal that she had little time left anyway, since nephritis affected her single kidney.
Humbert picks up Dolores from camp, telling her that Charlotte is sick in a hospital. They stay overnight in a hotel hosting police convention attendees, and attract the attention of another guest. While Dolores sleeps upstairs, this stranger insinuates himself upon Humbert, presenting himself as a policeman and cryptically steering the conversation to Humbert and Dolores. The next morning, Dolores suggests to Humbert that they play a "game" she learned at camp, and it is implied that they have sex. Humbert later confesses to Dolores that her mother is dead. Grief-stricken, she stays with Humbert. The two commence a trip cross country, acting publicly as father and daughter.
In the fall, Humbert initiates his position at Beardsley College and enrolls Dolores in high school there. A jealous Humbert worries about her involvement with male classmates and the lead she has been offered in the school play, and people grow curious about his protectiveness. One night, he returns home to find a stranger in his darkened living room. Claiming to be Dr. Zempf, the psychologist from Dolores's school, he inquires about her knowledge of " the facts of life " and coerces Humbert into allowing her to participate in the school play.
During a performance of the play, Humbert learns that Dolores has been lying about spending Saturday afternoons at piano practice. They have an argument and Humbert decides to take Dolores on the road again. Dolores objects at first, but seemingly changes her mind after making a surreptitious phone call. Once on the road, Humbert realizes that they are being followed by a car. Dolores falls ill and he takes her to the hospital. One night, a mysterious call to his motel room prompts Humbert to visit the hospital in order to discharge Dolores, but he is told that she already left with a man claiming to be her uncle. Humbert is devastated.
Three years later, he receives a letter from Dolores, now pregnant, married to an unemployed and half-deaf mechanic, and in need of money. Humbert visits her and asks who had kidnapped her from the hospital. She says that it was Clare Quilty, a famous playwright and the intrusive stranger who kept crossing their path all along, disguising himself as a policeman and later Dr. Zempf. Dolores was infatuated with Quilty ever since his fling with Charlotte years ago, and carried on an affair with him at Beardsley. She left the hospital with him when he promised her a Hollywood contract. Instead, he secluded her in a dude ranch near Santa Fe and demanded that she join his depraved lifestyle and act in his child pornography, which she refused.
Humbert begs Dolores to leave with him. She refuses, on account of her new predicament, but apologizes for cheating. Humbert gives Dolores $13,000, her money from the sale of Charlotte's house. He then leaves to confront Quilty in his mansion at gunpoint. A drunk Quilty tries to dodge the situation with bizarre offers (including an invitation to attend executions), but is shot dead by Humbert. A postscript reveals that Humbert later died of coronary thrombosis awaiting trial for Quilty's murder.