Novel 353: Sir Walter Besant and James Rice, Ready-Money Mortiboy (1872)

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The son of a miserly father, supposed dead, returns unexpectedly.

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Sir Walter Besant (1836-1901) wrote some ten novels with James Rice (1844-1882) and some thirty more on his own.  This was his first.

“A clever book . . . which no grown man who has any experience of life can read without being the better for it”; the author makes characters “say in his pages just what they say in every day real life.” Athenaeum, July 13, 1872

“The story is daring and clever, and is well worth reading.” British Quarterly, July, 1873

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v.1 https://archive.org/details/readymoneymortib00besa_0

v.2 https://archive.org/details/readymoneymortib00besa_1

v.3 https://archive.org/details/readymoneymortib00besa_2

Crossword 352: Another Defeat

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This is my second defeat; the first (see Crossword 136) took place nearly five years ago.  That makes my win-loss record 350-2.  To what do I owe this triumphant career?  Exercise and diet.  I spend at least six hours a day lifting virtual weights in my AI-assisted smart gym, and I fry my tofu only in lard.

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352 Another Defeat

Novel 352: David Dwight Wells, Her Ladyship's Elephant (1898)

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Two honeymoon couples are re-sorted by a train mix-up.

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The American David Dwight Wells (1868-1900) wrote only three novels before his early death.

A “screaming farce, neither more nor less, and successful in its line of delightful absurdity.” Saturday Review, June 25, 1898

“An admirable piece of fooling, with not a dull page.” Athenaeum, July 2, 1898

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https://archive.org/details/cu31924022210185

Crossword 351: Ugh! Get It Out of Here!

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I’ve objected before to the long triumphant march of ugliness that, already underway in the late Victorian period, has now overwhelmed everything everywhere: our art and literature, our music and architecture, our dress, manners and speech have grown so relentlessly transgressive, so unreservedly offensive, that nothing remains for them to transgress, and no one for them to offend, except, perhaps, a few sensitive souls, like you, gentle solver, and me.  The most common word in informal conversation nowadays (used, with “ing,” as an all-purpose intensifier) is one that still, happily, cannot be printed in a newspaper crossword.  So today I turn again, in my own crossword, to the ceaseless and untiring work of casting out ugliness in all its forms.

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351 Ugh!-Get-It-Out-of-Here!.puz

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351 Ugh! Get It Out of Here!

Novel 351: Dorothea Gerard, The Rich Miss Riddell (1894)

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A rich but plain woman suspects the sincerity of her lovers.

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Scottish-born Dorothea Gerard (1855 - 1915), who spent much of her early years with her family in Austria, and married an Austrian officer, set many of her novels in her adopted country; she wrote some 43 of them, some with her sister Emily.

It is “more than merely readable”; the heroine’s troubles “are treated with perfect sympathy, considerable subtlety, and an entire absence of sensationalism”; “the pictures of foreign life are informed by that thorough knowledge and insight familiar to Miss Gerard’s readers.” Athenaeum, June 2, 1894

The author “tells even the slightest story with grace and verve and never fails to introduce us to at least one winsome new acquaintance”; “the book cannot fail to win many readers.” Academy, June 16, 1894

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Crossword 350: Practice Phrases for the Aspirational

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You’ve got on your top hat, white tie, and tails, or your evening gown and string of pearls, and you’re seated at table next to the countess of this or the earl of that, and you’re using the right fork.  “I wonder whether the weather will improve,” you say.  Eyebrows are raised, gazes averted.  Nobody responds.  You’re never invited back.  What, oh what, have you done?  This puzzle supplies you with five practice phrases; learn to pronounce them properly and you may face your next dinner in high society with confidence.

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350-Practice-Phrases-for-the-Aspirational.puz

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350 Practice Phrases for the Aspirational

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A crossword of mine will appear Saturday, March 14, in The Wall Street Journal

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Novel 350: Beatrice Whitby, Bequeathed (1900)

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A man is devastated by his wife’s death in childbirth.

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Beatrice Whitby (c.1856-1931) wrote some 15 novels between 1889 and 1911.

“Very few of her contemporaries can vie with her in a certain indefinite charm of manner, which renders almost everything she writes very pleasant reading.” Spectator, June 2, 1900

“Not . . . a great book, but it is as good as” many contemporary “much-discussed, much-advertised volumes,” avoiding “second-hand, second-rate smartness”; features “quiet studies in human nature” showing “sympathy and understanding.” Athenaeum, June 2, 1900

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https://archive.org/details/bequeathedanove00whitgoog

Crossword 349: Strip Joint

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Don’t let the title frighten you: this crossword is, like all my crosswords, free from full or even partial nudity, in fact of “erotic” content of any kind, and appropriate for family solving. In fact, I cleanse various phrases that might have once had an impure implication and redirect them to innocent ends, for my aim as a constructor is and has always been to save the world from itself, one puzzle at a time.

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349-Strip-Joint.puz

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349: Strip Joint

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A crossword of mine will appear Wednesday, March 4, in The Wall Street Journal

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Novel 349: Holme Lee, Warp and Woof (1861)

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The narrator’s father’s bankruptcy and bullying sister’s ascendancy lead to various further misfortunes.

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For Holme Lee, see Novel 193

“We are delighted with this novel, both because it is quite new, and also because the story is very artistically constructed, as well as extremely interesting; and the subdued and polished style in which it is told adds immensely to the pleasure with which we peruse it”; despite a “too uniform tone of melancholy” it provides “a quiet yet truthful description of one kind of English domestic life.” Westminster Review, January 1862

The characters are “well drawn”; “a work of considerable power and thought, and shows that the authoress possesses a very keen insight into the habits and feelings of her own sex.” Critic, December 14, 1861

A contrasting view:

It has “an atmosphere of gloom so deep that the most pleasurable situation is overshadowed by the misery actors and spectators alike know to exist around them.” The author’s “decided literary power” gives it an “air of truth” that only makes it worse. Spectator, December 7, 1861

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v.1 https://archive.org/details/warpandwooforre02parrgoog

v.2 https://archive.org/details/warpandwooforre01parrgoog

v.3 https://archive.org/details/warpandwooforre00parrgoog

Crossword 348: Phrasemaking

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I’ve made seven phrases for today’s puzzle; my legal team is having them all properly copyrighted, or patented, or trademarked, or whatever—maybe all three.  Meanwhile, I demand that everyone in the world refrain from using them (unless for nonprofit educational purposes) until they have entered the public domain in, I believe, February 2131.

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348-Phrasemaking.puz

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348 Phrasemaking

Novel 348: Eleanor Frances Poynter, The Failure of Elisabeth (1890)

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An innocent young lady falls in love with a stingy old clergyman.

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For Poynter, see Novels 145 and 195.

“A little too long” but “a pleasing, wholesome story” with “carefully drawn distinctive characters.” Athenaeum, May 10, 1890

“The characters . . . are carefully drawn” and the “style . . . is at once strong, flowing, and lucid.” Academy, June 7, 1890

“The story contains some very lifelike and entertaining sketches of the manners and customs of British subjects habitually resident in foreign boarding-houses.” Saturday Review, June 21, 1890

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v.2 https://books.google.com/books?id=9MpUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

v.3 https://books.google.com/books?id=FaNUAAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=The_Failure_of_Elisabeth&pg=PP5#v=onepage&q&f=false

Crossword 347: Put It in Reverse

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Lately I find I make crosswords mainly to give myself a pretext for railing in these comments against things I dislike. A couple of weeks ago it was orange and blue; before that it was dogs; before that it was something else. I can’t keep track of them all; I need to compile an inventory so that I don’t forget to dislike any of them.

Today it’s the back-up beeper, the piercing tones of which announce to everyone within a radius of a mile or two, and especially to everyone who might be napping, or reading quietly, or listening to soft music, that SOMEthing SOMEwhere is BACKing UP. I think there might be a special suite of rooms in hell where the popularizers and profiteers of the back-up beeper, and the leaf blower, and the car alarm sit forever and ever and ever deprived of all sensory experience except the beeps and the wails and the whining roars they inflicted on the rest of us in life. I won’t say I hope so, because that would be cruel, but I will say that I can easily reconcile such a possibility with the existence of a just and loving God.

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347 Put-It-in-Reverse.puz

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347 Put It in Reverse

Novel 347: Margaret Oliphant, The Cuckoo in the Nest (1892)

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An innkeeper’s daughter seeks to marry into a genteel family.

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For Oliphant, see Novels 007, 008, 056, 107, 152, 205, 206 and 266.

Oliphant “has seldom, to our thinking, made a completer portrait than that of” this novel’s heroine. “Her insight into the byways of manner and modes of thought of a certain class” is “admirable” Athenaeum, September 24, 1892

The main character is “presented with such searching truthfulness and such fine dramatic realism, that the book is worthy of a place beside the most brilliant of its predecessors.” Spectator, December 3, 1892

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v.1 https://archive.org/details/Cuckoo_in_the_Nest_vol1

v.2 https://archive.org/details/Cuckoo_in_the_Nest_vol2

v.3 https://archive.org/details/Cuckoo_in_the_Nest_vol3

Crossword 346: Cutbacks

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Times are hard here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Fortnightly Victorian Novel Recommender.  With the new year, our emergency Covid funds have run out. We’ve had to lay off 30 percent of our staff.  We’ve considered crossing fewer words; after some painful soul-searching we’ve decided instead to lower the quality of our recommended novels by 20 percent.

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346: Cutbacks

Novel 346: Charlotte Dunning Wood, A Step Aside (1886)

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In New York City, the relationship of a poor teacher and an ambitious young clerk is troubled by poverty.

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For Wood, see Novel 287.

The hero is “described with much genuine feeling”; the heroine is “a sweet and natural character”; the author “does not attempt to excite her readers, but she both interests them and touches their hearts.” Athenaeum, October 9, 1886

Dunning “contrives to tell a very unobtrusive story with interest and charm, and lets her characters display themselves.” Saturday Review, November 13, 1886

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https://archive.org/details/astepaside00woodgoog

Crossword 345: Off Color

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Some things are the wrong color. The blue once associated politically with Toryism and the red with Communism have now become, by a process I don’t understand, the colors of Democrats and Republicans.  The screamingly orange subway benches on some New York City lines make sudden violence seem probable and even appropriate.  And orange should never under any circumstances be juxtaposed with blue, in logos, in school colors, in textiles, or anywhere else.  FedEx, and the University of Illinois, and certain Scottish clans, please take note.

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345 Off Color

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A crossword of mine will appear Wednesday, January 7, in The Wall Street Journal

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Novel 345: Thomas Cobb, Mr. Passingham (1899)

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A peeress seeks to break off her son’s engagement.

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For Cobb, see Novels 043, 146, and 216.

“Neat workmanship and artistic reticence.” Spectator, May 20, 1899

A different view:

“The workmanlike skill and cleverness with which this story is put together, its smart and epigrammatic dialogue, and more than one excellent character outline, combine to increase the regret, which grows in reading it, that so much ability should have been bestowed upon such poor material. Thin, stagey, and well-worn are the devices and developments.” Athenaeum, July 22, 1899

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https://archive.org/details/mrpassinghamane-00cobbgoog-corrected

Crossword 344: The First Noel

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Attentive solvers will recall that, 183 crosswords ago, I posted a puzzle called “Noels” (see Crossword 161), so this puzzle is not, they will suppose, my first “noel.”  In fact, however, this is the prequel to Crossword 161, the second part of a projected “noel” trilogy, which will in turn form the first part of a trilogy of trilogies all exploring my “noel” universe, and all of which should appear, if not by the end of the century, early in the next.  So stay tuned!

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344 The-First-Noel.puz

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344 The First Noel

Novel 344: Justin McCarthy, Donna Quixote (1879)

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A dying man marries the woman he loves so that she can inherit his wealth; she tries to do good with it.

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For McCarthy, see Novels 059, 163, and 220.

It “has in its characters and its descriptions as much freshness and as much humour as we have observed in the author's former novels, combined with more than hints of a strength which he has not before exhibited”; it is “the best novel that we have read for a considerable time.” Saturday Review, December 13, 1879

“Mr. Justin McCarthy’s novels rank among the select few which deserve to be as popular a hundred years hence as they are now.  Contemporaries welcome them chiefly for the sake of plots which, though slight, are always interesting, and heroes and heroines in whose fortunes even the most hardened novel reader cannot fail to sympathise.  Posterity will turn to them for the social aspect of our time, illustrated by subordinate characters each of whom typifies some current whim or folly.  And, notwithstanding Mr. McCarthy’s keen sense of humour, these types are portraits, not caricatures, their outlines being sharpened and their tints deepened only to such an extent as the true artist permits himself.” Academy, December 27, 1879

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https://archive.org/details/donnaquixote00mcca/

Crossword 343: Dealing with Affronts

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True happiness comes, I have found, not from riches or love or power, but simply from the ability to endure calmly the many affronts—to common sense, to simple morality, to good taste—that the world forces upon us every day. This puzzle is designed to give you practice in cultivating that invaluable skill.

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343 Dealing with Affronts