SOURCE: “Shade and Shape in Pale Fire,” in Nabokov Studies, Vol. 4, 1997, pp. 173-224.

In the following essay, Boyd pursues the problem of internal authorship in Pale Fire.

… which, I hope, sufficiently approximates the text, or is at least faithful to its spirit

—Pale Fire, Note to Lines 39-40

For those who have been following the story so far: this will not lead where you expect.

Setting Out the Problem

The longest-running and the fiercest disagreement in the interpretation of any of Nabokov's works has been over the internal authorship of Pale Fire.¹ Nabokov wrote the novel in 1960-1961, and published it in 1962, but Charles Kinbote signs the Foreword on October 19, 1959, after having also written the Commentary to John Shade's 999-line poem, “Pale Fire,” which he reports was composed between July 2 and July 21, 1959. Kinbote has evidently also compiled the Index. In the fictive world where Kinbote can sign his...