Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In the opening chapter of VN's novel Transparent Things (1972) the spectral narrators mention a hillside stone over which a multitude of small animals have scurried in the course of incalculable seasons:

Here's the person I want. Hullo, person! Doesn't hear me.

Describing his novel Letters from Terra, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the poet Max Mispel who discerned in Van's novel the influence of Osberg (Spanish writer of pretentious fairy tales and mystico-allegoric anecdotes, highly esteemed by short-shift thesialists):

Describing the campus of Wordsmith University, 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 famous avenue of all the trees mentioned by Shakespeare (the so-called Shakespeare Avenue):

Describing his novel Letters from Terra, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the poet Max Mispel who discerned in Van's novel the influence of Osberg as well as that of an obscene ancient Arab, expounder of anagrammatic dreams, Ben Sirine, thus transliterated by Captain de Roux, according to Burton in his adaptation of Nefzawi’s treatise on the best method of mating with obese or hunchbacked females:

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) quotes the beginning of a sonnet that Conmal (the king’s uncle, Zemblan translator of Shakespeare) composed directly in English:

Describing the torments and suicide of poor mad Aqua (the twin sister of Van's, Ada's and Lucette's mother Marina), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) metnions a luxurious ‘sanastoria’ at Centaur, Arizona, and a Dr Sig Heiler (Aqua's last doctor):

In the "library" chapter of VN's novel Ada (1969) Van Veen (the narrator and main character) mentions a spectacular skin disease that Monsieur Philippe Verger (the Ardis librarian) shared with Miss Vertograd (the librarian of Demon Veen, Van's and Ada's father): 

On Demonia (Earth’s twin planet, also known as Antiterra, on which VN’s novel Ada, 1969, is set) Charlotte Corday (the girl who stabbed Marat in his bath) is known as Cora Day, an opera singer:

After the dinner in 'Ursus' and debauch à trois with Lucette (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's half-sister) in Van's Manhattan flat Ada is wearing her diamond necklace in sign of at least one more caro Van and a Camel before her morning bath:

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) and mentions “Terra the Fair, an orbicle of jasp:”

While snubbing gods, including the big G,

Iph borrowed some peripheral debris

From mystic visions; and it offered tips

(The amber spectacles for life's eclipse) -

How not to panic when you're made a ghost: