Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

When he visits Queen Disa at her Mediterranean villa, 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) brings her a bouquet of flowers-of-the-gods:

At the end of Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) quotes the words of his wife Sybil, "Darling, shut the door:"

Stormcoated, I strode in: Sybil, it is

My firm conviction - "Darling, shut the door.

Had a nice trip?" Splendid - but what is more

I have returned convinced that I can grope

My way to some - to some - "Yes, dear?" Faint hope. (ll. 830-834)

Shade is an authority on Pope. Alexander Pope's Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot (1735) begins as follows:

The narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada (1969), Van Veen arrives at the site of his pistol duel with Captain Tapper, of Wild Violet Lodge, in Johnny Rafin's Paradox, a cheap 'semi-racer:'

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) died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest:

Describing his second road trip with Lolita across the USA and their visit to Elphinstone (where Lolita falls ill, is hospitalized and is abducted from the hospital), Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) uses the phrase soyons logiques (let's be logical):

Describing his life in Paris with his first wife Valeria, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions a glorified pot-au-feu ("pot on the fire," a stew composed of meat — typically an assortment of beef cuts — along with carrots, potatoes, and an array of other vegetables):

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), as a young man in Paris he discussed Soviet movies with expatriates:

In VN's novel Lolita (1955) Clare Quilty (a fashionable playwright and pornographer whom Humbert murders for kidnapping Lolita) tells Humbert that he has been called the American Maeterlinck:

VN's novel Lolita (1955) begins and ends with its title character's name:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. 

Describing his departure from Manhattan, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) calls his father's mistress "a temporary Tamara" and mentions her Caucasian perfume, Granial Maza: