Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

At the end of VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) the hero falls down to his death from the bathroom window of a Berlin flat rented by his father-in-law:

At the beginning of VN's novel Camera Obscura (1933) Cheepy, the charming guinea pig painted by Robern Horn, a gifted but unprincipled cartoonist (who in Laughter in the Dark, the novel's 1938 English version, becomes Axel Rex), holds in its paws the skull of a rodent (labeled Cavia cobaja) and exclaims "poor Yorick!":

In Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes shaving and mentions slaves who make hay between his mouth and nose:

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 young Baron Radomir Mandevil (a man of fashion and Zemblan patriot):

The characters in VN’s novel Podvig (“Glory,” 1932”) include Darwin, Martin Edelweiss's best friend and rival at Cambridge, and the distinguished scholar Archibald Moon (the author of a book on Russia):

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 Uran the Last, the Emperor of Zembla who seems to correspond to Paul I (1754-1801, reigned in 1796-1801):

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 Iris Acht, a celebrated actress, favorite of Thurgus the Third (grandfather of Charles the Beloved):

The characters in VN's novel Dar ("The Gift," 1937) include Christopher Mortus, a hostile literary critic who reviewed Fyodor's book Zhizn' Chernyshevskogo ("The Life of Chernyshevski"):

Почти одновременно с этой увеселительной рецензией, появился отзыв Христофора Мортуса (Париж), -- так возмутивший Зину, что с тех пор у нее таращились глаза и напрягались ноздри всякий раз, как упоминалось это имя.

A character in VN's novel Lolita (1955), Gaston Godin (Humbert Humbert's friend and chess partner at Beardsley), eventually gets involved in a sale histoire, in Naples of all places:

In VN's novel Pale Fire (1962) one of Kinbote's notes to Shade's poem ends with a rather anti-Darwinian aphorism, "the one who kills is always his victim's inferior:"

Line 596: Points at the puddle in his basement room