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), the terrible name of the leader of the Shadows (a regicidal organization) cannot be mentioned, even in the Index to the obscure work of a scholar:

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), after line 274 of Shade's poem there is a false start in the draft:

In his foreword to Humbert Humbert’s manuscript, John Ray, Jr. (a character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions the caretakers of the various cemeteries involved who report that no ghosts walk:

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 the society sculptor and poet Arnor:

In his little pocket diary that he kept in Ramsdale as Charlotte's lodger, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) says that, before moving to Ramsdale, Lolita and her mother Charlotte lived in Pisky, the Haze home town in the Middle West:

In his foreword to Humbert Humbert’s manuscript John Ray, Jr. (a character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions “My Cue,” a biography written by Vivian Darkbloom (Clare Quilty's coauthor):

During her second road trip with Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) across the USA, Lolita falls ill and on Tuesday, 28 June 1949, is hospitalized in Elphinstone (a small town in the Rocky Mountains). Describing his stay at the Elphinstone Silver Spur Court, Humbert Humbert mentions big Frank, a robust and kindly trucker who had been blown through a wall overseas:

When Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) visits Lolita (now married to Dick Schiller and big with child) in Coalmont, she tells him about her life after her escape from the Elphinstone hospital with Clare Quilty (a playwright and pornographer) and calls Elphinstone (a small town in the Rocky Mountains) "Elephant:"

“Sit down,” she said, audibly striking her flanks with her palms. I relapsed into the black rocker.

“So you betrayed me? Where did you go? Where is he now?”

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:

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955), you can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.