Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Van tells Lucette (Van’s and Ada’s half-sister) who looks at Lenore Colline (the movie actress who resembles Ada) that cats do not stare at stars:

Mr Sween, lunching with a young fellow who sported a bullfighter’s sideburns and other charms, bowed gravely in the direction of their table; then a naval officer in the azure uniform of the Gulfstream Guards passed by in the wake of a dark, ivory-pale lady and said: ‘Hullo Lucette, hullo, Van.’

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Lolita is abducted from Humbert Humbert on July 4, 1949 (the Independence Day).

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), the king escaped from green Zembla clad in bright red clothes:

Describing his stay in Elphinstone (where Lolita falls ill and is hospitalized), Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions Aurora (the goddess of dawn in Roman mythology and Latin poetry) and the pickers of lavender:

The characters in VN’s novel Lolita (1955) include Rev. Rigger, a teacher at Beardsley School whom the girls call Rev. Rigor Mortis (“stiffness of death”):

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Clare Quilty (a playwright and pornographer whom Humbert Humbert murders for abducting Lolita from the Elphinstone hospital) resembles Gustave Trapp, Humbert Humbert’s Swiss uncle:

When Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) reads Mona Dahl’s letter to Lolita, he does not notice that qu’il t’y (a tongue-twister in the bit of French nonsense quoted by Mona) hints at Clare Quilty, the author of The Enchanted Hunters (the play that was a grand success at Beardsley):

Describing his life with Rita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions Rita’s vin triste smile:

In a little poem that he composed for Rita Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions The Enchanted Hunters (a hotel in Briceland where Humbert and Lolita spend their first night together) and Diana:

Describing the Night of the Burning Barn (when Van and Ada make love for the first time), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Sophismes de Sophie by Mlle Stopchin in the Bibliothèque Vieux Rose series: