Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Dolores Haze (Lolita's name on the dotted line) attends Beardsley School for girls:

The characters in VN's novel Ada (1969) include Philip Rack, Lucette's music teacher and composer who was poisoned by his jealous wife Elsie and who dies in Ward Five (where hopeless cases are kept) of the Kalugano hospital:

The father of the twins Aqua and Marina, General Ivan Durmanov (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's, Ada's and Lucette's grandfather) owned lands in the Severn Tories (Severnïya Territorii):

When Van and Ada (the two main characters in VN's novel Ada, 1969) watch Kim Beauharnais's album, Ada mentions Love under the Lindens by one Eelmann transported into English by Thomas Gladstone:

But what about the rare radiance on those adored lips? Bright derision can easily grade, through a cline of glee, into a look of rapture:

Before the family dinner in "Ardis the Second" Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) tells Demon (Van's and Ada's father) that he looks satanically fit, especially with that fresh carnation in his lapel eye:

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.

At the end of 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) says that he prays for the Lord's benediction to rest on his wretched countrymen:

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes the night of his daughter's death and quotes the words of his wife Sybil who said that later a quartet of bores, two writers and two critics, would debate the Cause of Poetry on Channel 8:

A male hand traced from Florida to Maine

The curving arrows of Aeolian wars.

You said that later a quartet of bores,

Two writers and two critics, would debate

The Cause of Poetry on Channel 8.

A nymph came pirouetting, under white

As he speaks to Gradus (one of the three main characters in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade's murderer), Oswin Bretwit (the former Zemblan consul in Paris) says: "Nothing is sacred to you, neither cancer, nor exile, nor the pride of a king:"

His smile gone, Bretwit (the name means Chess Intelligence) got up from his chair. In a larger room he would have paced up and down - not in this cluttered study. Gradus the Bungler buttoned all three buttons of his tight brown coat and shook his head several times.

Describing the King's escape from Zembla, 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 The Merman, a fine old melodrama:

Describing Gradus’ activities in Paris, 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 Oswin Bretwit, the former Zemblan consul in Paris: