Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Before the family dinner in "Ardis the Second" Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) recalls his trip to Akapulkovo:

Demon shed his monocle and wiped his eyes with the modish lace-frilled handkerchief that lodged in the heart pocket of his dinner jacket. His tear glands were facile in action when no real sorrow made him control himself.

‘You look quite satanically fit, Dad. Especially with that fresh oeillet in your lapel eye. I suppose you have not been much in Manhattan lately — where did you get its last syllable?’

Dolores Haze (in VN's novel Lolita, 1955, Lolita's full name) was born on January 1, 1935:

Describing a game of poker that he played at Chose with Dick C. (a cardsharp) and the French twins, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions milord's stupidity:

One of the three main characters in VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962), Charles Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) asks God to rid him of his sexual love for little boys:

Describing the difference between Terra and Antiterra (Earth's twin planet also known as Demonia), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions the details of the L disaster that happened on Demonia in the beau milieu of the 19th century:

Describing Flavita (the Russian Scrabble), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the Gritz (a hotel in Venezia Rossa) and an unfortunate English tourist, Walter C. Keyway, Esq.:

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) Van and Ada find out that they are brother and sister thanks to Marina’s old herbarium that they discovered in the attic of Ardis Hall:

On September 22, 1952, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1952) receives a letter (dated September 18, 1952) from Lolita (who lives with her husband, Dick Schiller, in Coalmont):

I remember letting myself into my flat and starting to say: Well, at least we shall now track them down - when the other letter began talking to me in a small matter-of-fact voice:

Dear Dad:

Dolores Haze (in VN's novel Lolita, 1955, the heroine's real name) was born in Pisky (a town in the Middle West) on January 1, 1935. In that year twenty-five-year-old Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in Lolita) married his first wife Valechka (Valeria Zborovski, the daughter of a Polish doctor) in Paris:

In VN's novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character) calls his pursuer (Clare Quilty, a playwright and pornographer) "a veritable Proteus of the highway:"