In a footnote to our article for the new NOJ, Tiffany DeRewal and I included (with kind permission from Dmitri) a few uncanceled lines from the holograph ms. of Pale Fire. It's fun to imagine that these were John Shade's lines (rather than just VN's), in which case we might ask why he replaced them, or, since they are uncanceled in the manuscript, why Kinbote took them out. You would think he would have much to say about them! Anyway, here they are:

 

Found that my bunch of essays The Untamed

Seahorse was "universally acclaimed"

(Indeed, it sold exceptionally well --

mainly because I had seen fit to dwell

In scolary [sic] detail on the delights

Byron derived from little catamites).

 

I'm excited to see the edition of PF Sam Gwynn mentioned. Even more fun might be a facsimile edition of the notecards on which VN actually wrote the poem. A comparison of the two might be revealing.

 

Best,

Matt Roth