Harvard Academic's Troubling Epstein Correspondence Uncovered
Newly released congressional documents have revealed disturbing email exchanges between a prominent Harvard University professor and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including discussions about Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita.
Elisa New, a professor emerita of American literature in Harvard's English department, engaged in email correspondence with Epstein in 2018, ten years after his conviction for procuring an underage child for prostitution. The communications were part of a document dump recently made public by Congress.
Lolita Discussions and Celebrity Connections
According to the released emails, New contacted Epstein seeking help to recruit tennis superstar Serena Williams for her poetry project. During their exchange, the literature professor unexpectedly brought up Nabokov's 1955 novel about a professor who sexually abuses his 12-year-old stepdaughter.
"I'm going upstairs to hunt for my copy of Lolita, or will get on my kindle and reread on our way to Australia," New wrote to Epstein in 2018. "I may have lent it to one of my kids."
The novel appears to have inspired the nickname of Epstein's private jet, the Lolita Express, adding disturbing context to their literary discussion.
New continued the book recommendations, suggesting Epstein read Willa Cather's My Antonia, noting it had "similar themes to Lolita in that it's about a man whose whole life is stamped forever by his impression of a young girl."
Honeymoon on 'Pedo Island'
The documents also confirm that New and her husband, former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, visited Epstein's private Caribbean island during their honeymoon in December 2005. Flight logs show the couple flew from Bedford, Massachusetts, to Little St. James Island on December 11, 2005 - just ten days after their wedding.
This visit occurred while Summers was serving as Harvard president and six months after Palm Beach police began investigating Epstein over the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl. The island would later become known as 'Pedo Island' due to the sex abuse crimes that took place there.
A spokesperson for Summers previously stated that the couple made "a brief visit of less than a day" to Epstein's island as part of a broader honeymoon trip to St. John and Jamaica.
Financial Connections and Fallout
The released correspondence reveals financial ties between New and Epstein. In a 2014 email, New wrote to Epstein: "Larry has told me that you and a friend would like to contribute to my project... and that I ought to write up a proposal asking for 500,000."
Harvard University confirmed it received $9.1 million in gifts from Epstein between 1998 and 2008, though no further donations were accepted after his 2008 conviction.
The ongoing fallout from the Epstein connections has had serious consequences for both academics. Summers was forced to step down from his role as an economics professor at Harvard earlier this week over his Epstein links, including referring to the convicted sex offender as his 'wingman' in a damaging email.
A spokeswoman for New and Summers told the Wall Street Journal in 2023 that New "regrets accepting funding from Epstein" and had subsequently made a donation exceeding the amount received to an anti-sex trafficking organization.
There is no suggestion of criminality on the part of New or Summers, and their visit to Epstein's island occurred the year before his first indictment on child sex charges. However, the timing of New's 2018 emails about Lolita - a decade after Epstein's conviction - has raised questions about judgment and association.
