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), in police records Gradus also appears as Ravus, Ravenstone and d’Argus:

The epigraph to VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) is from James Boswell’s biography of Samuel Johnson:

This reminds me of the ludicrous account he

gave Mr. Langston, of the despicable state of a

young gentleman of good family. 'Sir, when I

heard of him last, he was running about town

shooting cats.' And then in a sort of kindly

In VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) Kinbote (Shade’s mad commentator who imagines that he is Charles the Beloved, the last self-exiled king of Zembla) calls Izumrudov (one of the greater Shadows who visits Gradus in Nice) “the gay green vision:”

In Canto Two of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) speaks of his daughter and says that she twisted words:

                         She twisted words: pot, top
Spider, redips. And "powder" was "red wop."
She called you a didactic katydid.
She hardly ever smiled, and when she did,
It was a sign of pain. She'd criticize

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), Judge Goldsworth (Kinbote’s landlord) resembles a Medusa-locked hag:

Describing King Alfin’s passion for flying apparatuses, 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 constant "aerial adjutant" Colonel Peter Gusev:

In VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) John Shade’s poem begins as follows:

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain

By the false azure in the windowpane;

I was the smudge of ashen fluff - and I

Lived on, flew on, in the reflected sky. (ll. 1-4)

In VN’s novel Pale Fire (1962) Canto Four of Shade’s poem (written in heroic couplets, a traditional form for English poetry) begins as follows:

Now I shall spy on beauty as none has
Spied on it yet. Now I shall cry out as
None has cried out. Now I shall try what none
Has tried. Now I shall do what none has done. (ll. 835-838)

Describing two methods of composing, method A and method B, John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions the automaton:

In method B the hand supports the thought,

The abstract battle is concretely fought.

The pen stops in mid-air, then swoops to bar

A canceled sunset or restore a star,

And thus it physically guides the phrase

At the beginning of Canto Four of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) says that he will spy on beauty as none has spied on it yet and mentions two methods of composing:

Now I shall spy on beauty as none has
Spied on it yet. Now I shall cry out as
None has cried out. Now I shall try what none
Has tried. Now I shall do what none has done.
And speaking of this wonderful machine: