Nabokov showed it to just a few people, and then lost the manuscript in the process of coming to the United States and believed that he had destroyed it.

In common is the theme of hebephilia and the basic strategy - to gain access to the girl, the male marries the mother.

Charlotte and Dolores have distinct character developments and views, rather than serving as passive pawns in the hebephile's strategy.

This comment is ironic in itself, because the conclusion of Lolita is an argument by the imprisoned hebephile and murderer that his corrupt history is a love affair.

[editorializing] The language of Lolita achieves a level of irony and humor considerably more developed than that of the more prosaic The Enchanter.

In Chapter Two of The Gift, Nabokov lets Shchyogolev outline the thematic premise of The Enchanter, namely the stratagem of an hebephile to marry a mother in order to gain access to the daughter.

[2] Dmitri Nabokov pointed out that his father specifically wanted "Volshebnik" translated as "enchanter" rather than "magician" or "conjuror".

He comments on the complex imagery of The Enchanter: "… the line he (VN) treads is razor thin, and the virtuosity consists in a deliberate vagueness of verbal and visual elements whose sum is a complex… but totally precise unit of communication."