Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

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), Jakob Gradus (Shade's murderer) called himself variously Jack Degree or Jacques de Grey, or James de Gray, and also appears in police records as Ravus, Ravenstone, and d'Argus:

In VN's novel Ada (1969) general Durmanov (Van's, Ada's and Lucette's maternal grandfather) wondered why his wife did not call one of her twins Tofana:

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 Iris Act, a celebrated actress, favorite of Thurgus the Third (grandfather of Charles the Beloved):

In VN’s novel Zashchita Luzhina (“The Luzhin Defense,” 1930) the guests at a party thrown by Luzhin’s wife include an elderly actor with a face manipulated by many roles and Petrov, a plain-looking man whose sole function in life was to carry, reverently and with concentration, that which had been entrusted to him, something which it was necessary at all costs to preserve in all its detail and in all its purity:

Describing his dinner with Ada’s family at the Bellevue Hotel in Mont Roux, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions Lemorio, the flamboyant comedian whom Yuzlik (the director of Don Juan’s Last Fling, a film in which Ada played the part of the gitanilla) passionately wanted for his next picture:
 

In VN's novel Ada (1969) Van and Ada find out that they are brother and sister thanks to Marina's old herbaium that they discovered in the attic of Ardis Hall. The last entry in Marina's diary ends in the words "Last day here:"

On Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth's twin planet on which VN's novel Ada, 1969, is set) Ilemna (a subarctic monastery town) was renamed Novostabia:

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) mentions Stella Lazurchik, an Americanized Kashube who married Sinyavin’s son Blue (Starover Blue’s father):

Asking Van to stop his affair with Ada, Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) says that he will tell Van about the Black Miller some other time:

A longish pause not unlike a fellow actor’s dry-up, came in response to his well-rehearsed speech.

Finally, Demon: ‘The second fact may horrify you even more than the first. I know it caused me much deeper worry — moral of course, not monetary — than Ada’s case — of which eventually her mother informed Cousin Dan, so that, in a sense —’

Pause, with an underground trickle.

The action in VN's novel Ada (1969) takes place on Demonia, Earth's twin planet also known as Antiterra. Describing Victor Vitry's film Letters from Terra, Van Veen (the narrator and main character) mentions the lovely leading lady, Norwegian-born Gedda Vitry, and compares her to some lewd elf: