Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

At the end of his Commentary 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 may turn up yet, on another campus, as an old, happy, healthy heterosexual Russian, a writer in exile, sans fame, sans future, sans audience, sans anything but his art:

The wife of Charles the Beloved (in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962, the last self-exiled King of Zembla), Queen Disa is Duchess of Payn, of Great Payn and Mone:

Disa, Duchess of Payn, of Great Payn and Mone; my lovely, pale, melancholy Queen, haunting my dreams, and haunted by dreams of me, b. 1928; her album and favorite trees, 49; married 1949, 80; her letters on ethereal paper with a watermark I cannot make out, her image torturing me in my sleep, 433. (Index)

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), on the eve of his wedding King Charles prayed most of the night locked up all alone in the cold vastness of the Onhava cathedral:

In VN's novel Ada (1969) the phrase "destroy and forget" occurs at least four times:

'Good for you, Pompeianella (whom you saw scattering her flowers in one of Uncle Dan's picture books, but whom I admired last summer in a Naples museum). Now don't you think we should resume our shorts and shirts and go down, and bury or burn this album at once, girl. Right?’

'Right,' answered Ada. 'Destroy and forget. But we still have an hour before tea.' (1.1)

Describing Aunt Maud's room in Canto One of his poem, John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions the forlorn guitar:

Describing Aunt Maud's room in Canto One of his poem, John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions the verse book open at the Index (Moon, Moonrise, Moor, Moral):

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), after Line 274 of Shade’s poem there is a false start in the draft:

I like my name: Shade, Ombre, almost 'man'
In Spanish... (note to Line 275)

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes his childhood and says that he was brought up by dear bizarre Aunt Maud:

In his short poem “The Nature of Electricity” quoted by 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 his Commentary John Shade mentions streetlamps:

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his dead daughter and mentions the talks with Socrates and Proust in cypress walks: