Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing the discovery of a secret passage that leads from the Onhava Palace to the Royal Theater, 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 a game of chess played by Monsieur Beauchamp (the Prince’s French governor) and Mr. Campbell (the Prince’s Scottish tutor):

Describing his quarrel with Lolita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) compares himself to Mr. Hyde (Henry Jekyll's evil alter ego in R. L. Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, 1886):

In his Foreword to Humbert Humbert's manuscript John Ray, Jr. (a character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions his colleague, Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann:

Describing a stage play that he and Lolita saw in Wace, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions a garland of seven little graces, more or less immobile, prettily painted, bare-limbed - seven bemused pubescent girls in colored gauze that had been recruited locally (judging by the partisan flurry here and there among the audience) and were supposed to represent a living rainbow:

At the end of VN's novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character) mentions prophetic sonnets:

In VN's novel Look at the Harlequins! (1974) Other Books by the Narrator include A Kingdom by the Sea (1962), Vadim's novel that corresponds to VN's Lolita (1955). At the Orly airport on his way back from Leningrad Vadim Vadimovich (the narrator and main character in LATH) finds a copy of his novel:

Describing his conversation with Lolita, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) mentions "Ray," a word used by Lolita for "hurray:"

Describing his childhood, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) says that his father was "a gentle, easy-going person, a salad of racial genes:"

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), it took Shade twenty days to write his poem:

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions Sherlock Holmes:

And then the gradual and dual blue

As night unites the viewer and the view,

And in the morning, diamonds of frost

Express amazement: Whose spurred feet have crossed

From left to right the blank page of the road?

Reading from left to right in winter's code:

A dot, an arrow pointing back; repeat: