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), Jakob Gradus (Shade’s murderer) also appears in police records as Ravus, Ravenstone, and d'Argus:

At the patio party in "Ardis the Second" G. A. Vronsky’s joke about a telegraph pole causes Marina (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother who had a secret fondness for salty jokes) to collapse in Ada-like ripples of rolling laughter (pokativshis’ so smehu vrode Adï):

And now hairy Pedro hoisted himself onto the brink and began to flirt with the miserable girl (his banal attentions were, really, the least of her troubles).

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) quotes Arnor’s poem about a miragarl (mirage girl), for whose "careful jewels" a dream king in the sandy wastes of time would give tri stana verbalala (three hundred camels) ut tri phantana (and three fountains):

Describing the years of his enforced separation from Ada, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions his works that he composed in various places:

He traveled, he studied, he taught.

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN's novel Pale Fire, 1962) tells about his dead daughter. Asking her mother what this or that word means, Hazel Shade mentions the word sempiternal:   

She was my darling - difficult, morose -

But still my darling. You remember those

Almost unruffled evenings when we played

Mah-jongg, or she tried on your furs, which made

Her almost fetching; and the mirrors smiled,

The lights were merciful, the shadows mild,

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 the king Thurgus the Third, surnamed The Turgid (grandfather of Charles the Beloved), and his mistress Iris Acht (a celebrated actress):

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), King Alfin's question "What emperor?" has remained his only memorable mot:

In his Foreword and 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 Gerald Emerald, a young instructor at Wordsmith University who gives Gradus (Shade's murderer) a lift to Kinbote's rented house in New Wye:

As he speaks to Van, Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) mentions his young mistress, Cordelia O'Leary:

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) quotes Conmal's sonnet in which Conmal (the Zemblan translator of Shakespeare) says that he is not a slave and calls Shakespeare "Master:"