Florence Sally Horner
Encyclopedia
Florence Sally Horner was a girl abducted by a child molester in 1948.
. Frank La Salle, a 50 year-old mechanic, caught her stealing, told her that he was an FBI agent, and threatened to send her to "a place for girls like you". Then he abducted the girl and spent 21 months traveling with her over different America
n states and raping
her. While attending school in Dallas, Texas
, she confided her secret to a friend. Later she escaped from La Salle, and phoned her sister at home, asking her to send the FBI. La Salle was arrested and claimed that he was Florence's father; however, the FBI found that her father had died seven years previously. La Salle was sentenced to 30 to 35 years in prison.
Florence Horner died in a car accident near Woodbine, New York, on August 18, 1952. As the Associated Press reported on 20 August 1952: "Florence Sally Horner, a 15-year-old Camden, N.J., girl who spent 21 months as the captive of a middle-aged morals offender a few years ago, was killed in a highway accident when the car in which she was riding plowed into the rear of a parked truck."
by Vladimir Nabokov
. Though Nabokov had already used the same basic idea — that of a child molester and his victim booking into a hotel as man and daughter — in his then unpublished 1939 work Volshebnik (Волшебник), it is still possible that he drew on the details of the Florence Horner case in writing Lolita. An English
translation of Volshebnik was published in 1985 as The Enchanter. Nabokov explicitly mentions this case in Chapter 33, Part II of Lolita: "Had I done to Dolly, perhaps, what Frank Lasalle, a fifty-year-old mechanic had done to eleven-year-old Sally Horner in 1948?"
Abduction
At the age of 11, Horner stole a 5-cent notebook from a store in Camden, New JerseyCamden, New Jersey
The city of Camden is the county seat of Camden County, New Jersey. It is located across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city had a total population of 77,344...
. Frank La Salle, a 50 year-old mechanic, caught her stealing, told her that he was an FBI agent, and threatened to send her to "a place for girls like you". Then he abducted the girl and spent 21 months traveling with her over different America
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
n states and raping
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
her. While attending school in Dallas, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, she confided her secret to a friend. Later she escaped from La Salle, and phoned her sister at home, asking her to send the FBI. La Salle was arrested and claimed that he was Florence's father; however, the FBI found that her father had died seven years previously. La Salle was sentenced to 30 to 35 years in prison.
Florence Horner died in a car accident near Woodbine, New York, on August 18, 1952. As the Associated Press reported on 20 August 1952: "Florence Sally Horner, a 15-year-old Camden, N.J., girl who spent 21 months as the captive of a middle-aged morals offender a few years ago, was killed in a highway accident when the car in which she was riding plowed into the rear of a parked truck."
Cultural references
Critic Alexander Dolinin proposed in 2005 that Frank La Salle and Florence Sally Horner were the real life prototypes of Humbert Humbert and Dolores "Lolita" Haze from LolitaLolita
Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York, and later translated by the author into Russian...
by Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Nabokov
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
. Though Nabokov had already used the same basic idea — that of a child molester and his victim booking into a hotel as man and daughter — in his then unpublished 1939 work Volshebnik (Волшебник), it is still possible that he drew on the details of the Florence Horner case in writing Lolita. An English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
translation of Volshebnik was published in 1985 as The Enchanter. Nabokov explicitly mentions this case in Chapter 33, Part II of Lolita: "Had I done to Dolly, perhaps, what Frank Lasalle, a fifty-year-old mechanic had done to eleven-year-old Sally Horner in 1948?"
External links
- What happened to Sally Horner?, by Alexander Dolinin.
- 1940s sex kidnap inspired Lolita, by Ben Dowell. Sunday TimesThe Sunday Times (UK)The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
, September 11, 2005.