Could a Nabokov novel have been the ‘father of all hypertext demos’?

In 1969, IBM wanted to show off Ted Nelson’s early hypertext system at a conference, and Nelson secured permission to demonstrate it using an unlikely text: Vladimir Nabokov’s 1962 novel Pale Fire, which consists of a 999-line poem buried under the deranged commentary of its self-appointed editor, Charles Kinbote.

The demo got scrapped in favor of someth…