“Insert before a professional”

Charles Kinbote, editor and commentator, thanks his publisher, “good old Frank.”

Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (1962).

If you’re not familiar with Pale Fire: it’s a novel in the form of an annotated edition of a poem, with foreword, notes, and index. The 999-line poem, “Pale Fire,” is by John Shade, a Frost-y poet teaching at a small northeastern college. The editor and annotator is Shade’s not-quite-next-door neighbor Charles Kinbote. That’s all I should say.

There’s another Frank in the novel, John Shade’s handyman, mentioned in Kinbote’s note to line 181. The novel is full of doubles.

Also from Pale Fire
Aunt Maud’s clippings : Chthonic, grimpen, sempiternal : Index cards