Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

The narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada (1969), Van Veen learns about Percy de Prey's death in the Crimean War from Cordula de Prey (Ada's schoolmate at Brownhill College, Percy's second cousin):

Panting, Cordula said:

The French butler at Ardis (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, the family estate of Van's and Ada's uncle Daniel Veen), Bouteillan calls Kim Beauharnais (a kitchen boy and photographer at Ardis whom Van blinds for spying on him and Ada and attempting to blackmail Ada) "ce gredin" (that scoundrel): 

In VN's novel Pale Fire (1962) Hazel Shade (the poet's daughter whose "real" name seems to be Nadezhda Botkin) drowned in Lake Omega. In A Song to David (1763) Christopher Smart (an English poet, 1722-71, who wrote A Song to David and Jubilate Agno during his confinement for insanity in St. Luke's Asylum in London) mentions seven letters of the Greek alphabet (Alpha, Gamma, Eta, Theta, Iota, Sigma and Omega):

Describing Shade’s murder by Gradus, 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 cannot write out the odd dark word employed by his black gardener with respect to the killer:

Line 998: Some neighbor's gardener

Before the family dinner in "Ardis the Second" Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) reads Van's palm and mentions the strange condition of the Sister of Van's Life:

According to Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969), Marina’s affair with Demon Veen (Van’s and Ada’s father) started on January 5, 1868:

Marina’s affair with Demon Veen started on his, her, and Daniel Veen’s birthday, January 5, 1868, when she was twenty-four and both Veens thirty.

At end of his brief note to Oswin Bretwit (in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962, the former Zemblan consul in Paris whom Gradus visits in the hope to find out the King's address) Baron B. quotes the Latin proverb verba volant, scripta manent (spoken words fly away, written words remain):

Describing his performance in variety shows as Mascodagama, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions a large Good-will Circus Company that had come from Tartary just then:

At the end of VN's novel Ada (1969) Van Veen (the narrator and main character) mentions butterflies and butterfly orchids in the margin of the romance:

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 Arctic no longer vicious Circle: