Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

The title character of VN's novel Pnin (1957) has a pair of spindly legs and frail-looking, almost feminine feet:

Describing the King's escape from Zembla, 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 the Gulf of Surprise:

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 note in the icebox warning with a bark that "no national specialities with odors hard to get rid of" should be placed therein:

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

Describing John Shade's last birthday, 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 ancient Dr. Sutton, a snowy-headed, perfectly oval little gentleman, and his tall daughter, Mrs. Starr, a war widow (and president of Sybil Shade's book club):

In Canto One and then again at the end of Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions the windows of old Dr. Sutton's house:

And there's the wall of sound: the nightly wall

Raised by a trillion crickets in the fall.

Impenetrable! Halfway up the hill

I'd pause in thrall of their delirious trill.

That's Dr. Sutton's light. That's the Great Bear.

A thousand years ago five minutes were

Equal to forty ounces of fine sand.

Outstare the stars. Infinite foretime and

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions the svelte stilettos of a frozen stillicide:

All colors made me happy: even gray.

My eyes were such that literally they

Took photographs. Whenever I'd permit,

Or, with a silent shiver, order it,

Whatever in my field of vision dwelt -

An indoor scene, hickory leaves, the svelte

Stilettos of a frozen stillicide -

The characters in VN’s novel Lolita (1955) include Clare Quilty, a playwright and pornographer whom Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character) murders for abducting Lolita from the Elphinstone hospital. Clare Quilty and Coalmont (a small mining town where Lolita, now married to Dick Schiller and big with child, lives with her husband) bring to mind Claire Clairmont (1798-1879), the stepsister of English writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra.

According to John Ray, Jr. (in VN's novel Lolita, 1955, the author of the Foreword to Humbert Humbert’s manuscript), Mrs. “Richard F. Schiller” (Lolita's married name) outlived Humbert by forty days and died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest:

During her second road trip with Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) across the USA Lolita falls ill and on June 28, 1949, is hospitalized in Elphinstone (a small town in the Rocky Mountains):

As she speaks to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) and his wife Charlotte (Lolita's mother), Jean Farlow mentions her dogs Cavall and Melampus:

From the debouchment of the trail came a rustle, a footfall, and Jean Farlow marched down with her easel and things.

“You scared us,” said Charlotte.