Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

At the beginning of Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that he will spy on beauty as none has spied on it yet and mentions two methods of composing:

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:

Describing the family dinner in "Ardis the Second," Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions Richard Leonard Churchill's novel about a certain Crimean Khan in the course of which the author twice mistranslates a trite French phrase (chacun à son gout):

In VN's novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1941) Sebastian's half-brother V. (the narrator and main character) describes his meeting with Sebastian and his girlfriend in Paris on a dull grey afternoon in November or December 1924: 

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), Ada is addressed to young laymen and lemans — and not to grave men or gravemen:

Describing Shade's murder by Gradus, 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) quotes a line from Matthew
Arnold's poem The Scholar-Gipsy (1853):

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 Queen Disa’s cousin, Harfar Baron of Shalksbore, who was nicknamed Curdy Buff by his admirers:

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) says that Shade's obituary was written by Professor Hurley (the head of the English Department at Wordsmith University):

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), writers should see the world, pluck its figs and peaches, and not keep constantly meditating in a tower of yellow ivory:

In a conversation at the Faculty Club 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) says that his book on surnames came out in Oxford:

Shade [addressing the German visitor]: "Professor Kinbote is the author of a remarkable book on surnames. I believe [to me] there exists an English translation?"
"Oxford, 1956," I replied. (note to Line 894)

Describing a conversation at the Faculty Club, 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 Gerald Emerald (a young instructor at Wordsmith University who gives Gradus, Shade's murderer, a lift to Kinbote's rented house in New Wye) to a disciple in Leonardo's Last Supper: