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), after Shade's death he distributed the ninety-two index cards with the manuscript of Shade's poem about his person and sewed up all four pockets:

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 Shade's words about their common acquaintance, "The man is as corny as a cook-out chef apron:" 

In VN's story Lik (1939) the two main characters are the actor Alexander Lik (in the English version Lik is the stagename of Lavrentiy Ivanovich Kruzhevnitsyn) and his cousin (and former schoolmate) Oleg Koldunov. In his diary (the entry of July 8, 1909) Alexander Blok repeats the word liki (pl. of lik, "face, countenance") four times and mentions zakoldovannaya priroda (bewitched nature) and raskoldovannye lyudi (unspelled people):

In Kalugano Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) asks Johnny Rafin, Esq. (Van's second in his pistol duel with Captain Tapper, of Wild Flower Lodge) if there is a good whorehouse in the vicinity:

In VN's novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert is afraid that his wife Charlotte will bundle off Lolita to St. Algebra:

There was a woodlake (Hourglass Lake - not as I had thought it was spelled) a few miles from Ramsdale, and there was one week of great heat at the end of July when we drove there daily. I am now obliged to describe in some tedious detail our last swim there together, one tropical Tuesday morning.

Describing the Zemblan Revolution, 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 Queen Disa's Italianate villa built by her grandfather in 1908:

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), the Zemblan Revolution broke out on May 1, 1958:

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Lolita is sent by her mother to Camp Q where she is debauched by Charlie Holmes, the camp-mistress's son. Q in the camp's name is a qui pro quo (Lat., "who instead of whom," a bummel). Quo vadis? ("Whither goest thou?") are St. Peter's first words to the risen Christ during their encounter along the Appian Way. To Peter's question Christ replies: Romam eo iterum crucifigi ("I am going to Rome to be crucified again").

In his letter to Demon Veen (in VN's novel Ada, 1969, Van's and Ada's father) written before his duel with Captain Tapper, of Wild Violet Lodge, Van Veen says that his adversary may be the chap who was thrown out of one of Demon's gaming clubs for attempting oral intercourse with the washroom attendant, a toothless old cripple, veteran of the first Crimean War:

Describing Demon’s sword duel with Baron d’Onsky (‘Skonky’), Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions smart little Vatican, a Roman spa: