Yes, it might raise some eyebrows, but there have always been people that insist that they read Playboy for the articles. And since Nabokov’s 1969 novel Ada was excerpted in Playboy, it gave its literary editor, Amy Grace Loyd, foot in the door.

The original of Laura was long unread, since Vladimir Nabokov stated as a dying wish that his unfinished novella should not be published. After a change of heart, though, his son Dmitri contacted literary agent Wylie to find a suitable purchaser.

Loyd decided to emphasise the long-standing association of Playboy with Nabokov by way of the orchids that appeared in Ada. After Wylie received a notice of no interest from The New Yorker, a publication that also had a strong association with Nabokov in days gone by, he offered the option of first serial to Loyd; “I’m so glad all those orchids did not die in vain. I don’t imagine anybody’s taking good care of them over there.”