Jonathan Main has died. Main ran a bookshop in South London called The Bookseller Crow On The Hill, a person and a store beloved by the community that formed around them.
I mention it because I did not realize until now that Main was also the blogger who, in 2010, noticed that Penguin Modern Classics had stripped out the first section of Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita. Written as a fictional foreword by pyschologist John Ray, Jr., PhD, the section is the frame for the entire story.
Within days Penguin announced they were pulping the edition. [h/t @john-self.bsky.social]
Main published his blog on TypePad, which recently announced it would be discontinuing its platform, and deleting everything hosted there. Main’s blog, at least, is preserved by the Internet Archive, while the rest of us can keep the memory of his lolwtf discover alive.