Annotations by Alexey Sklyarenko

Describing his visits with Ada of the little Caliph Island in the summer of 1888, Van Veen (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Ada, 1969) mentions the first faint shadows of what Ada would later term ‘my acarpous destiny’ (pustotsvetnost’):

In Canto One of his poem John Shade (the poet in VN’s novel Pale Fire, 1962) mentions his favorite young shagbark tree:

I had a favorite young shagbark there

With ample dark jade leaves and a black, spare,

Vermiculated trunk. The setting sun

Bronzed the black bark, around which, like undone

Garlands, the shadows of the foliage fell.

In his Commentary to Shade’s poet 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) says that Shade shared with the English masters the noble knack of transplanting trees into verse with their sap and shade:

Line 49: shagbark

In one of her letters to Van written after Van left Ardis forever Ada mentions Marina’s new director of artistic conscience:

[Los Angeles, 1889]

On Demonia (aka Antiterra, Earth’s twin planet on which VN’s novel Ada, 1969, is set) Charlotte Corday (the girl who stabbed Marat in his bath) is known as Cora Day, an opera singer:

According to Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955), at his first interview with Mrs. Pratt (the headmistress of Beardsley School for girls) the latter told him that they stressed the four D’s: Dramatics, Dance, Debating and Dating:

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Lolita attends Beardsley School for girls:

Describing his attempt to find a photograph of Lolita’s abductor in an old issue of the Briceland Gazette, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) calls himself “Professor Hamburg:”

Describing his attempt to find a photograph of Lolita’s abductor in an old issue of the Briceland Gazette, Humbert Humbert (the narrator and main character in VN’s novel Lolita, 1955) exclaims “Reader! Bruder!”:

In VN’s novel Lolita (1955) Humbert Humbert’s first wife Valeria leaves him to live with Colonel Maximovich, a White Russian who works as a taxi driver in Paris: