Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In a dialogue on the pillared porch of The Enchanted Hunters (a hotel in Briceland where Humbert Humbert and Lolita spend their first night together) a stranger (apparently, Clare Quilty) tells Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) that his child needs a lot of sleep and that sleep is a rose, as the Persians say:

Describing the king’s escape from Zembla and the last moments of Shade's life, 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 red-capped Steinmann:

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) compares Shade's voice that he heard say "Come tonight, Charlie" to a big bird in his garden:

Describing the death of King Alfin (the father of Charles the Beloved), 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) calls a very special monoplane, Blenda IV, built for King Alfin by his constant "aerial adjutant," Colonel Peter Gusev, a "bird of doom:"

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), superstitiously he cannot write out the odd dark word employed by his black gardener (Balthasar, Prince of Loam, as Kinbote dubbed him) with regard to Shade's murderer:

Line 998: Some neighbor's gardener

At the beginning (and then again in Lines 131-132) of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) compares himself to the shadow of the waxwing:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

By the false azure in the windowpane;

I was the smudge of ashen fluff - and I

Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky. (ll. 1-4)

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain 

In his foreword 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 a person (Shade's former literary agent) who wondered with a sneer if Mrs. Shade's tremulous signature under her contract with Kinbote might not have been penned "in some peculiar kind of red ink:"

In his commentary and index 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 Sudarg of Bokay, a mirror maker of genius:

Describing IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) in Canto Three of his poem, John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions Buddhism, a religion that took root at IPH:

In VN's novel Ada (1969), the governess of Van's and Ada's half-sister Lucette, Mlle Larivière writes fiction under the penname Guillaume de Monparnasse: