Lolita's second part opens with a resume of Humbert's and Lo's travels from August 1947 to August 1948 when they settle in at 14 Thayer Street in Beardsley. Humbert is concerned about Lo's education:

I also decided that anything was better for Lo than the demoralizing idleness in which she lived. I could persuade her to do so many things—their list might stupefy a professional educator; but no matter how 1 pleaded or stormed, I could never make her read any other book than the so-called comic books or stories in magazines for American females. Any literature a peg higher smacked to her of school, and though theoretically willing to enjoy A Girl of the Limberlost or Arabian Nights or Little Women, she was quite sure she would not fritter away her "vacation" on such highbrow reading matter. (Appel 1970, 175)