The novel, conceived by Nabokov before moving to the United States (excerpts of "Ultima Thule" and "Solus Rex" were written in Russian in 1939). ), is constructed as a 999-line poem with a literary allusion-rich commentary. This structure was prompted by Nabokov to work on a four-volume commentary on the translation of "Eugene Onegin" (a possible prototype - "Dunsiad" by Alexander Pope) . According to the book, the commented poem belongs to the famous American poet, and the comment was arbitrarily added by his university colleague. A colleague, clearly crazy, sees in the poem hints at his own fate - the fugitive king of Zembla . There was a revolution in this non-existent country, and the king fled to America. Translated from English by . Ilyin