Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN's story The Vane Sisters (1951) the spirits of Oscar Wilde and Leo Tolstoy appear at a sèance arranged by Cynthia:

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) says that he cannot write out the odd dark word employed by his black gardener with respect to the murderer:

Before the family dinner in “Ardis the Second” Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) tells Van that the servants at Ardis are not Mercuries:

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) says that he cannot write out the odd dark word employed by his black gardener with respect to the killer:

Describing the King’s escape from the palace, 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 lansquenet played by two soldiers on a stone bench in the palace court:

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), in a conversation with him and Shade Mrs. Hurley mentioned the old man at the Exton railway station who thought he was God and began redirecting the trains:

Above this the poet wrote and struck out:

The madman’s fate

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 “the pine groves of Boscobel” and “my sweet Boscobel:”

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), he wanted to call himself "Otto Otto" and "Mesmer Mesmer:"

In Canto One of his poem Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions Sherlock Holmes:

And then the gradual and dual blue

As night unites the viewer and the view,

And in the morning, diamonds of frost

Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have crossed

From left to right the blank page of the road?

Reading from left to right in winter's code:

A dot, an arrow pointing back; repeat:

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), he became a vegetarian after reading a story about an Italian despot: