Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing the family dinner in “Ardis the Second,” Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the British writer Richard Leonard Churchill:

In March 1905 Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) perishes in a mysterious airplane disaster above the Pacific:

Furnished Space, l’espace meublé (known to us only as furnished and full even if its contents be ‘absence of substance’ — which seats the mind, too), is mostly watery so far as this globe is concerned. In that form it destroyed Lucette. Another variety, more or less atmospheric, but no less gravitational and loathsome, destroyed Demon.

In a conversation with Monsieur Wilde in the lounge of the Ascot Hotel in Witt (a Swiss mountain resort) Hugh Person (the main character in VN's novel Transparent Things, 1972) mentions the celestial nature of solitary confinement:

In VN’s novel Ada (1969) poor mad Aqua (the twin sister of Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother Marina) imagines that she can understand the language of her namesake, water:

Describing Gradus' visit to Joe Lavender's Villa Libitina, 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 photographs of the artistic type called in French ombrioles collected by Joe Lavender:

On the morning after the dinner in ‘Ursus’ (the best Franco-Estotian restaurant in Manhattan Major), just before the debauch à trois, Ada (the title character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) calls her and Van's half-sister Lucette “pet:”

In his commentary and index 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 King Thurgus the Third, surnamed the Turgid (the grandfather of Charles the Beloved), and his mistress Iris Acht (a celebrated actress):

In his commentary and index 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 young Baron Mandevil (a man of fashion and Zemblan patriot) and his cousin, a member of the Shadows (a regicidal organization):

Describing his landlord's 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 Judge Goldsworth's four daughters: Alphina, Betty, Candida and Dee:

In his commentary and index 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 Yeslove, a fine town north of Onhava (the capital of Zembla):