Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

In his Foreword to Humbert Humbert’s manuscript John Ray, Jr. (a character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) mentions “My Cue,” a biography written by Vivian Darkbloom:

When Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955) visits Lolita (now married to Dick Schiller) in Coalmont, she tells him about her stay at Duk Duk Ranch with Clare Quilty (the playwright who abducted Lolita from the Elphinstone hospital) and his friends:

She took from the mantelpiece a concave glossy snapshot. Old woman in white, stout, beaming, bowlegged, very short dress; old man in his shirtsleeves, drooping mustache, watch chain. Her in-laws. Living with Dick’s brother’s family in Juneau.

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Lolita, 1955), his very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when he was three. Humbert's mother was felled by a thunderbolt on a ridge above Moulinet:

At the end of VN's novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert mentions the melody of children at play, with spurts of vivid laughter, that he heard in a small mining town that lay at his feet:

Describing his meeting with Ada (now married to Andrey Vinelander) in October, 1905, in Mont Roux, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN's novel Ada, 1969) mentions his dialogue with Lucien (the concierge at Les Trois Cygnes):

arriving mont roux bellevue sunday

dinnertime adoration sorrow rainbows

The characters in VN’s novel Ada (1969) include Ronald Oranger (old Van’s secretary, the editor of Ada) and Violet Knox (old Van’s typist whom Ada calls Fialochka, "little Violet," and who marries Ronald Oranger after Van’s and Ada’s death):

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 a conversation with him Shade mentioned those joint authors of genius Ilf and Petrov:

In the last line of his poem On Translating “Eugene Onegin” (1955), the two stanzas written after the meter and rhyme scheme of the Eugene Onegin stanza, VN compares his English translation of EO to dove-droppings on Pushkin's monument:

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One of the three main characters 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) is the son of King Alfin and Queen Blenda. Alfin 250mg Tablet is an antifungal medicine. The name of the mother of Charles Xavier Vseslav seems to hint at Blend-a-med, a popular toothpaste produced since 1951 by Blendax GmbH (Mainz, Germany). Queen Blenda is a horsewoman:

In his 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 a very courageous master builder who was poisoned in the royal kitchens, together with his three young apprentices, Yan, Yonny, and Angeling: