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 his landlord’s four daughters (Alphina, Betty, Candida and Dee) and calls Judge Goldsworth "the head of this alphabetic family:"

Lines 47-48: the frame house between Goldsworth and Wordsmith 

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a winter morning and mentions a pheasant's footprints in the snow: 

Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake

Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque,

A dull dark white against the day's pale white

And abstract larches in the neutral light.

And then the gradual and dual blue

As night unites the viewer and the view,

And in the morning, diamonds of frost

Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have crossed

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a winter morning and mentions a pheasant's footprints in the snow: 

Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake

Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque,

A dull dark white against the day's pale white

And abstract larches in the neutral light.

And then the gradual and dual blue

As night unites the viewer and the view,

And in the morning, diamonds of frost

Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have crossed

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a winter morning and mentions a pheasant's footprints in the snow: 

Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake

Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque,

A dull dark white against the day's pale white

And abstract larches in the neutral light.

And then the gradual and dual blue

As night unites the viewer and the view,

And in the morning, diamonds of frost

Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have crossed

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a winter morning and mentions a pheasant's footprints in the snow: 

Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake

Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque,

A dull dark white against the day's pale white

And abstract larches in the neutral light.

And then the gradual and dual blue

As night unites the viewer and the view,

And in the morning, diamonds of frost

Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have crossed

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes a winter morning and mentions a pheasant's footprints in the snow: 

Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake

Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque,

A dull dark white against the day's pale white

And abstract larches in the neutral light.

And then the gradual and dual blue

As night unites the viewer and the view,

And in the morning, diamonds of frost

Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have crossed

In the last days of May (presumably, on May 28) 1947 thirty-seven-year-old Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) comes to Ramsdale (a small town in New England), falls in love with twelve-year-old Dolores Haze (Lolita's full name) and, a month later, marries Lolita's mother Charlotte. Ramsdale brings to mind Fuenteovejuna ("The Sheep Well," 1619), a play by the Spanish playwright Lope de Vega (1562-1635).

Describing his travels with Rita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions a blond, almost albino, young fellow with white eyelashes and large transparent ears, whom he and Rita found sleeping in their bed:

At the end of May 1947 thirty-seven-year-old Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) comes to Ramsdale (a small town in New England) and falls in love with twelve-year-old Dolores Haze. According to John Ray, Jr. (the author of the foreword to Humbert Humbert's manuscript), Humbert Humbert had died in legal captivity, of coronary thrombosis, on November 16, 1952, a few days before his trial was scheduled to start:

Describing his travels with Rita in 1950-1952, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions Rita’s brother, the mayor and boaster of Grainball: