Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter) in Canto Three of his poem, John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions l’if, lifeless tree:

L'if, lifeless tree! Your great Maybe, Rabelais:

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

Retake the falling snow: each drifting flake

Shapeless and slow, unsteady and opaque,

A dull dark white against the day's pale white

And abstract larches in the neutral light.

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

Describing his landlord's house, 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 Judge Goldsworth's four daughters: Alphina, Betty, Candida and Dee:

Describing the last moments of John Shade’s life, 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 fireflies making decodable signals on behalf of stranded spirits and a bat writing a legible tale of torture in the bruised and branded sky:

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), King Alfin's question "What emperor?" has remained his only memorable mot:

Describing his landlord's house, 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 Judge Goldsworth's four daughters: Alphina, Betty, Candida and Dee:

In a conversation at the faculty club Professor Hurley (a character in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) tells Professor Pardon (who cannot pronounce the name Pnin): "think of the French word for 'tire': punoo":

Describing his landlord's house, 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 Judge Goldsworth's four daughters: Alphina, Betty, Candida and Dee:

Describing the beginning of his life-long romance with Ada, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) says that both he and Ada kept diaries:

In VN's novel Ada (1969) Van and Ada make love for the first time in the Night of the Burning Barn (1.19). There is barn in Barnaul (a city in the south of western Siberia, on the left bank of the Ob River). In VN's play Sobytie ("The Event," 1938) Troshcheykin's wife Lyubov' calls her lover Ryovshin (who loves to poke his nose into other people’s affairs) Sherlok Kholms iz Barnaula ("a Sherlock Holmes from Barnaul"):