Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In a little poem he composed for Rita (a girl whom he picked up one depraved May evening somewhere between Montreal and New York, or more narrowly, between Toylestown and Blake, at a drakishly burning bar under the sign of the Tigermoth), Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions Diana (the ancient Roman goddess of hunting):

Describing his visit to the Elphinstone hospital, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions “Ponderosa Lodge” (a motel where Clare Quilty, a playwright and pornographer who poses as Humbert's brother and who abducts Lolita from the Elphinstone hospital, puts up):

Describing the young Prince's chaste romance with Fleur de Fyler, 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 - or rather, his grandfather's - cheval glass, a triptych of bottomless light, a really fantastic mirror, signed with a diamond by its maker, Sudarg of Bokay:

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), onhava-onhava means in Zemblan "far, far away:"

Describing Gradus's day in New York, 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 Zemblan moppet who at a picnic for international children cried to her Japanese friend: "Ufgut, ufgut, velkum ut Semblerland! (Adieu, adieu, till we meet in Zembla!):"

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), it took Shade twenty days to write his poem:

Describing the discovery of a secret passage that leads from the Onhava Palace to the Royal Theater, 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 game of chess played by Monsieur Beauchamp (the Prince’s French governor) and Mr. Campbell (the Prince’s Scottish tutor):

Describing his quarrel with Lolita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) compares himself to Mr. Hyde (Henry Jekyll's evil alter ego in R. L. Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 1886):

In his Foreword to Humbert Humbert's manuscript John Ray, Jr. (a character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions his colleague, Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann:

Describing a stage play that he and Lolita saw in Wace, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions a garland of seven little graces, more or less immobile, prettily painted, bare-limbed - seven bemused pubescent girls in colored gauze that had been recruited locally (judging by the partisan flurry here and there among the audience) and were supposed to represent a living rainbow: