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,
Pale Fire are many resemblances to "Ultima Thule" and "Solus Rex", two short stories by Nabokov intended to be the first two chapters of a novel in Russian that he never continued. The placename Thule appears in "Pale Fire", as does the phrase "solus rex" (a chess problem in which either colour has no pieces but the king). The book is also full of references to culture, nature, and literature. They include: See also "The Ambidextrous Universe", a later book referencing "Pale Fire" which in turn triggered a reciprocal response in a subsequent Nabokov novel ("", 1969). Pale Fire Pale Fire is