Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) tells about his daughter who “took her poor young life.”  In Canto Three Shade describes IPH (a lay Institute of Preparation for the Hereafter):

During Van’s first tea-party at Ardis Marina (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother) tells Van about Tarn, otherwise the New Reservoir:

Describing Lucette’s visit to Kingston, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions his favorite novel The Slat Sign:

Describing the torments of poor mad Aqua (Marina’s twin sister who married Demon Veen), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions a luxurious ‘sanastoria’ at Centaur, Arizona, and the Mondefroid bleakhouse horsepittle:

When Van returns home after his first summer at Ardis, Demon Veen (in VN’s novel Ada, 1969, Van’s and Ada’s father) tells him that Marina (Van’s, Ada’s and Lucette’s mother) gives him a glowing account of Van and says uzhe chuvstvuetsya osen’ (the autumn is already to be felt):

In his Commentary 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) calls Gerald Emerald (a young instructor at Wordsmith University) “the man in green” and Gradus (Shade’s murderer) “the man in brown:”

To the latest issue of the school magazine Victor Wind (a character in VN’s novel Pnin, 1957) had contributed a poem about painters, over the nom de guerre Moinet:

Describing the forty days between Queen Blenda's death and his coronation, 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 an old psychiatrist so thoroughly bribed by Countess de Fyler as to look, even on the outside, like a putrid pear:

Describing his escape from Zembla, 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 (or rather his red-sweatered, red-capped doubleganger's) scarlet reflection in the water’s limpid tintarron:

Describing the forty days between Queen Blenda's death and his coronation, 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 a kind of planchette that Queen Blenda (the mother of Charles Xavier Vseslav) had used in her lifetime to chat with Thormodus Torfaeus and A. R. Wallace: