Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In a dialogue on the porch of The Enchanted Hunters (a hotel in Briceland where Humbert Humbert and Lolita spend their first night together) a stranger (apparently, Clare Quilty) tells Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) that his child needs a lot of sleep and that sleep is a rose, as the Persians say:

In his foreword 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) describes the poet's physical appearance and mentions the forces of perfection which purifed and chiseled his verse:

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:

In his commentary and index 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) mentions King Alfin (the father of Charles the Beloved): 

Describing the death of Queen Blenda (the mother of Charles Xavier Vseslav), 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 one alin by which Countess de Fyler (the queen's lady-in-waiting) beat all seven counsilors, dressed in their formal splendor and carrying like plum cakes replicas of various regalia, who came striding down the stairs of stone, in dignified haste, and spat out the news of the queen's death:

In VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962), the poet Shade and his commentator Kinbote (who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) live in New Wye (a small University town in New England). The Wye is a river in England and Wales. Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour.

In Canto Three of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes his heart attack and mentions his wife's portrait by Lang:

It was a year of Tempests: Hurricane
Lolita swept from Florida to Maine.
Mars glowed. Shahs married. Gloomy Russians spied.
Lang made your portrait. And one night I died. (ll. 679-682)

In his commentary and index 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) mentions Sylvia O’Donnell (née O'Connell), a wealthy socialite with several ex-husbands who helps the ex-king immigrate to America and gets him a job at Wordsmith University:

In VN's novel Pale Fire (1962), Kinbote's note to line 149 of Shade's poem, in which Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) describes the king's escape from Zembla, ends with the sentence "I trust the reader has enjoyed this note." Au lecteur ("To the Reader") is the introductory poem to Charles Baudelaire's collection Les Fleurs du mal ("The Flowers of Evil," 1857).

Describing his rented 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) says that he has no desire to twist and batter an unambiguous apparatus criticus into the monstrous semblance of a novel: