Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing his rented house, Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions a catalogue raisonné of the desk's meager contents:

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his dead daughter and mentions one shy little guest who might be left out after a party:

It was no use, no use. The prizes won

In French and history, no doubt, were fun;

At Christmas parties games were rough, no doubt,

And one shy little guest might be left out;

But let's be fair: while children of her age

Were cast as elves and fairies on the stage

That she'd helped paint for the school pantomime,

A few minutes before the poet's death, Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade's mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) invites Shade to a glass of Tokay at his place:

"Well," I said, "has the muse been kind to you?"

Describing his first tea party at Ardis, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions Ada’s badly bitten fingernails and Tarn, otherwise the New Reservoir:

In a theological dispute with Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) quotes St. Augustine's words "One can know what God is not; one cannot know what He is" and says that he thinks he knows what He is not:

According to Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade's mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla), Jakob Gradus (Shade’s murderer) is the son of a Protestant minister in Riga:

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his dead daughter and mentions a syllogism:

What moment in the gradual decay

Does resurrection choose? What year? What day?

Who has the stopwatch? Who rewinds the tape?

Are some less lucky, or do all escape?

A syllogism: other men die; but I

In his commentary to Shade’s poem Kinbote (in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade's mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) describes his rented house and mentions the three conjoined lakes called Omega, Ozero, and Zero:

In Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that there are two methods of composing, method A and method B, and compares the poet, when he uses method A, to an automaton:

Now I shall spy on beauty as none has

Spied on it yet. Now I shall cry out as

None has cried out. Now I shall try what none

Has tried. Now I shall do what none has done.

And speaking of this wonderful machine:

I'm puzzled by the difference between

Two methods of composing: A, the kind

In his commentary to Shade's poem Kinbote (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) mentions Prof. H's guest, a decrepit emeritus from Boston - whom his host described with deep respect as "a true Patrician, a real blue-blooded Brahmin:"