Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

The characters in VN's novel Pnin (1957) include Jack Cockerell (the Head of the English Department at Waindell University, who is known for cruel, comical impersonations of Pnin) and his wife Gwen. The Cockerell couple brings to mind Pushkin's Skazka o zolotom petushke ("The Tale of the Golden Cockerel," 1834), in which the cockerel tells Tsar Dadon (a satire on the tsar Alexander I): "Tsarstvuy, lyozha na boku! (Reign abed, lying on your side!):"

In VN's novel Pnin (1957) the Cockerells have an old dog (a brown cocker spaniel with a tear-stained face) named Sobakevich:

In VN's novel Pnin (1957) the narrator recalls the late Olga Krotki once telling him that among the fifty or so faculty members of a wartime Intensive Language School, at which the poor, one-lunged lady had to teach Lethean and Fenugreek, there were as many as six Pnins, besides the genuine and, to him, unique article:

Describing a party given by the title character of VN's novel Pnin (1957), the narrator mentions a poor, one-lunged lady (the late Olga Krotki) who had to teach Lethean and Fenugreek at a wartime Intensive Language School:

Crossing the Atlantic from Europe to America, Pnin (the title character of VN's novel Pnin, 1957) plays chess with the ship's German passenger: 

According to John Ray, Jr. (in VN's novel Lolita, 1955, the author of the Foreword to Humbert's manuscript), Humbert Humbert had died in legal captivity, of coronary thrombosis, on November 16, 1952, a few days before his trial was scheduled to start:

Describing his childhood love, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) says that, as a boy, he wanted to be a famous spy:

On July 7, 1959, Jakob Gradus (one of the three main characters in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962, Shade's murderer) visits Oswin Bretwit (the former Zemblan consul) in Paris:

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) describes his childhood and mentions "the svelte Stilettos of a frozen stillicide" and "trophies of the eaves" (as Shade calls icicles):

All colors made me happy: even gray.

My eyes were such that literally they

Took photographs. Whenever I'd permit,

Or, with a silent shiver, order it,

Whatever in my field of vision dwelt -

Describing his rented house, 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 his landlord’s four daughters (Alphina, Betty, Candida and Dee):