When Vladimir Nabokov set his two main characters in the classic "Lolita" on a roadtrip of escape from their past and future, he took readers on a state-by-state tour of the American landscape. It was a symbolic sweep of two worlds colliding -- Europe and the New World, old and young, moral and immoral.

It was middle-century America, a place that Nabokov truly loved in his own life. But at the end of the fictional tour by Humbert Humbert and his prize Lolita (after 27,000 miles and nearly $10,000, according to Humbert, including tours through fictional towns like Lepingville, and starting and ending in the nonexistent Ramsdale), Nabokov wrote in Humbert's voice:

"We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night -- every night, every night -- the moment I feigned sleep."

Our Humbert Humbert Road Trip feature is aimed at reintroducing readers to the America found in the pages of "Lolita." Click each highlighted state for tidbits from the book -- notes taken by Humbert Humbert during his various stops in the journey.

Note: All excerpts: © 1955 by Vladimir Nabokov. Excerpted by permission of Vintage International, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.