SKB: Look for LEWIS CARROLL IN NUMBERLAND, Robin Wilson, W W Norton, 2008. Enough wordplay, perhaps, for non-mathematicians [...}VN was teasing when he said Carroll was an H-H prototype. Carroll certainly loved photographing naked nymphets but NO HANKY-PANKY.

JM: Why would VN be merely teasing when he saw in Carroll an HH prototype, considering their shared pedophilic voyeurism?
In "The Enchanter", as in the initial stages in "Lolita", both narrators insistently consider possible harms being inflicted on young girls by using them as objects for their fantasies, with no intended "hanky-panky." HH may have only dreamed his Commedia with Lo -  who knows?
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Jansy: many valid reasons to distinguish the eccentric Victorian  Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) from VN’s monster. To be a plausible real-life “prototype” for HH (with his physical paid-abuse of under-age prostitutes long before Lo appeared!) surely requires more than someone photographing very young upper-class girls, often chaperoned and always with their parent’s approval and even encouragement! IF you harbour the theory that HH “only dreamed” of bedding his fantasies, then you’re reading a different novel and most of our discussions and tonnes of “Lolita” criticism must be re-hashed. Lolita’s own reactions (not to mention Quilty’s and the FBI’s?) to his merely “dreamed” rogerings must also be moved to HH’s febrile imagination. There’s undoubtedly wild speculations and many unsolved mysteries about Carroll’s private life e.g., the four [in]famous missing diaries and several pages torn (after his death, ‘tis widely believed) from his surviving diaries. Good old Wiki covers these complexities, in particular Carroll’s falling out with the Liddle family. The 9+ year-old Alice Liddle, you’ll recall, is often taken as the model of his Alice tales, IN SPITE of Carroll’s REPEATED DENIALS. (Forgive the case-shift SHOUT, but I love it when the critics IGNORE an author’s self-exegesis.) His strange rift with the Liddles, according to some Carrollians & based on recent document finds, was due to suspicions that he was showing too much interest in LORIN Liddle! The Scouse verb is “sniffing around!” But here’s a ‘how-d’ye-do,’ LORIN was the shared name of Alice’s mother AND Alice’s OLDER sister. Yet another warning against onomastic over-exuberance. You might start leaping into comparisons with HH’s ploy to “get at” Lo via Lo’s mum! I meantersay: LO and LORIN — can’t possibly be a coincidence? BTW: David Crystal reports that the word “paedophile” first appears in written English 1924. I can’t verify this right now, but if true, one wonders what such offenders were called in Carroll’s times. As a further etymological warning that origins and first-citations can be problematical: “television” first appears in print in 1903!
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SKB: IS there clear evidence that Nabokov mangled the name of a London ‘Madame’ to name Lo’s mum?[...] Already, the so-called association of Charlotte Haze with one particular Charlotte Hayes from many hundreds so-named is triggering fanciful and contradictory speculation. And rational debate is hindered by the known fact that not every character named by Nabokov provides a proven, significant, positive ‘allusion.’ Goodman in TSLSK is quite nasty, allowing us to argue that “VN is playing the irony card.” Likewise, the characters of the two Charlottes are so disparate that one can be tempted to say: “Precisely! How Nabokovian!” Or, like FA, you can “shift  the blame” by one authorial level...

JM: I consider a play with both names, C.Hayes and C.Haze, childish and cruel. The use of "harlot", present in "Charlotte", might have triggered some kind of vague authorial irony. In my opinion this relationship would still be a tasteless joke - should it not have been simply accidental - for it is probable that VN had been cognizant of literature related to "coxcombe" matters, as indicated by M.Couturier.
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Jansy: I think we have different notions of what constitutes “allusional proof.” I still see no hard evidence that VN’s decision to name Lo’s mother as Charlotte Haze had anything to do with the existence of a real Madame called Charlotte Hayes. In fact, your observation that “Charlotte” hides the string “harlot” helps reduce the likelihood. (Interestingly, the popularity of Charlotte stems from its roots [feminine form of Karl, Charles, etc] meaning “free woman!”)

When we say “IF X then Y” there’s the danger of illogically adding credence to X if Y is considered to be true!
Here we have X = “VN knew of Charlotte Hayes the notorious procuress and mangled the name as  Charlotte Haze, Lo’s mother.” Y is “It’s cruel and childish of VN to associate these two women in any way.” You understandably consider Y to be true, BUT that leaves open the truth or falsehood of X.

skb

All private editorial communications, without exception, are read by both co-editors.