Pale Fire created by Kinbote, features an entry for a "Botkin, V.," describing this Botkin as an "American scholar of Russian descent"—and referring to a note in the Commentary on line 894 of Shade's poem, in which no such person is directly mentioned but a character suggests that "Kinbote" is "a kind of anagram of Botkin or Botkine". In this interpretation, "Gradus" the murderer is an American named Jack Grey who wanted to kill Judge Goldsworth, whose house "Pale Fire's" commentator—whatever his "true" name is—is renting. Goldsworth had condemned Grey to an asylum from which he escaped shortly before mistakenly killing Shade,
A Whiter Shade of Pale reached number 5 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 and sold over 1 million copies. It also peaked at number 22 on the soul charts there. The song was included on the US release of the "Procol Harum" album, in September 1967, but not on the subsequent UK version. In the Netherlands, the single entered the chart at number 1 in June 1967 and reached number 1 again in July 1972. A May 1972 re-release on Fly Records peaked at number 13 in the UK. "A Whiter Shade of Pale" has continued to receive critical acclaim. Along with Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody",