If you look closely, you’ll see above (and in the works of several of the more daring Victorian painters) the phenomenon described in 16 Across.
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If you look closely, you’ll see above (and in the works of several of the more daring Victorian painters) the phenomenon described in 16 Across.
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Lady Harriet Anne Scott (1819-1894), née Shank, wrote nine novels between 1838 and 1862.This one, despite its silly title, is a keen, nuanced portrait of an unhappy marriage.
It is “lightly and easily told” and “replete with social meanings.” New Monthly Magazine, February, 1848
“One of the best novels we have perused for a long while. . . . The vivid history” of the novel’s “social sphere” is “drawn with a force and truthfulness which bespeaks a mind of no common order.” “There is a deep knowledge of human character in it, and an admirable tracing of momentous consqeunces to apparently trifling causes. . . . Nothing can be more individual and distinct than the characters.” Literary Gazette, March 18, 1848
“The interest of the story is larger than the title (not a good one) would intimate; and certainly it is in no small degree life-like and natural.” Morning Post, March 31, 1848
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v.1 https://archive.org/details/henpeckedhusband01scot
This puzzle is amusing only if you know the French phrases on which it’s based. If you think you don’t, consult this helpful list of Six French Phrases Every Crossword-Solver Should Know before you start. Memorize these phrases and use them habitually in conversation, impressing your friends with your cosmopolitanism. Then, after some months have passed, and their use has become second nature to you, attempt the crossword below. You’ll find it’s well worth the time and effort.
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Alice Price (1840-1891) wrote seven novels between 1883 and 1892, of which this is the first. Its plot is full of exciting surprises; its characters are well delineated.
“Few recent novels can boast of so excellent a plot, of such remarkably well-drawn characters, and of the variety of incidents that is to be found in Who is Sylvia?.” Morning Post, February 1, 1883
“This novel may be read with genuine pleasure; it is agreeably written, and the interest is sustained to the close.” Academy, February 3, 1883
“The story is not overcharged with incident, but it has more than enough to relieve it from monotony, and the execution is much above the average. There are indications of quiet power in this novel which give ample promise for the future work of its author, and it is in itself an achievement with which its readers are more than likely to be content.” Athenaeum, February 3, 1883
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Lord Frederic Leighton, The Last Watch of Hero
There are few areas of popular culture I know less about than superhero comic strips and the movies based on them. In this I must be unusual, for they seem to come up frequently in crosswords, especially those in the New York Times. “Thor” is not just a Norse god but, apparently, a superhero. “Atom” is a diminutive superhero, “green” is superhero “ ___ Lantern”; “iron” is superhero “___ man.” Anyway, this puzzle is my little act of protest. It’s filled with superheroes of my own making, the sort of superheroes I’d like to read about. 22 Across, in particular, is the sort of superhero we need right now.
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Sir Henry Stewart Cunningham (1832-1920), a prominent barrister and judge, found time to write six novels between 1860 and 1894. Here, maybe he ran out of time, for, after three hundred pages of excellent social comedy, he concludes abruptly with a hundred more of badly plotted melodrama. The beginning and middle, however, are good enough to make up for the end.
“A capital story. Fresh, sparkling, and cheerful as a summer’s morning”; it provides “a very faithful daguerrotype of the life in an English sea-side town.” Christian Examiner, November, 1860
“This is a natural work. It will please all readers, whose tastes and human feelings have not been utterly obliterated by the blood-and-thunder ‘sensation’ romances of the time.” It “has the atmosphere of truth and the vigor of sincerity, and is executed with uncommon freedom, delicacy, and skill.” Knickerbocker, (quoting the New York Saturday Press), November, 1860
“The dialogue is unusually brilliant, natural, and easy. The fun is quiet, subtle, and continuous; and the illustrations of hidden thoughts and the shading off of finer traits of character are at once ingenious and truthful. But above all, it has throughout the unmistakable impress of a refined and delicate taste. The people in it who are represented as talking in drawing-rooms talk as if they really were in drawing-rooms, and not in the gilded saloons that haunt the fancy of Bohemia. The ladies are ladies, and the gentlemen are about as wise and foolish, as well-behaved and as ill-behaved, as gentlemen usually are.” Saturday Review, March 1, 1862
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Easter—rebirth—fertility—rabbits—eggs—it’s spring! As an antidote, I’ve provided a crossword featuring barrenness, burglary, drunkenness, sorcery, disfigurement, and job loss. You’re welcome.
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Lady Georgiana Fullerton (1812-1885), daughter of an earl and convert to Catholicism, wrote roughly a dozen novels between 1844 and 1883. Though the plot here is not always plausible, it enables her to place fully realized, sympathetic characters in interesting dilemmas.
“The skill with which the plot . . . is constructed, the exquisite truth of delineation which the characters exhibit, and the intensity of passion which warms and dignifies the subject, are alike admirable. . . . The depth of passion which surrounds the story of Ginevra is the result of unquestioned genius.” Times, August 24, 1847
“If sentimentalism is sometimes carried to a rather extravagant height, and tenderness and pathos are occasionally over-wrought, still it is impossible to deny to the work, striking and passionate scenes, exquisite and truthful delineations of English society and character, vigour and grace of language, and high intellectual power.” Ainsworth’s Magazine, July 1847
Fullerton “takes a high place among writers of modern fiction. We have not for many a day read so charming a story. . . . Though there is nothing violent in the nature of the interest, and weakness, not wickedness, induces the suffering, the suffering is deep enough for profoundest sympathy, and the feelings are moved and agitated to the last. And neighbouring the pathos...we have occasional archness, simplicity, and quiet humour, the effect of which is most graceful and lovely.” Examiner, July 3, 1847
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v.1 https://archive.org/details/grantleymanortal01full
As every child knows, there were nine Muses: Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania. Erato is a crossword favorite, on account of her attractive vowels. However, Wikipedia informs us that there were originally only three Muses, representing Practice, Memory, and Song—and I have constructed this crossword with the purpose of giving some long-overdue attention to this neglected trio, especially its second member, featured in 54 Down, which is where I began work. I really wanted to fit in the other two—Melete and Aoide—but my theme got in the way.
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Lucy Bethia Walford (1845-1915) wrote over 40 novels between 1874 and 1914. This one cleverly represents hopeless mutual incomprehension between characters of different social backgrounds.
“It is a society novel of an excellent type: abounding in clever delineations of human character, interesting snatches of bright conversation, and pretty descriptions of natural scenery.” Scots Observer, January 5, 1889
“There is much that is unusually clever in the story. The author’s sense of humour is genuine”; her “characters are, without exception, lifelike, even the workings of a young girl’s mind . . . are analysed with striking fidelity.” Morning Post, January 23, 1889
“A very interesting and carefully executed piece of work. . . . As usual, the author has wisely declined to encumber herself with a complicated plot; and though there is . . . quite enough story to keep the interest from flagging . . . the book is mainly attractive in virtue of its bright, lifelike conception and its capable and artistic delineation of character.” “Subtlety of handling which results in simplicity of effect is always a fine art, and the portrait of Major Gilbert seems to us very fine art indeed.” Spectator, April 29, 1889
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v.1 https://archive.org/details/stiffneckedgener01walf
The above Victorian painting alludes to the Victorian worker of 36 Down. The puzzle itself may seem uncharacteristically up-to-date, but don’t worry: the grasp of social media I display here is every bit as crude as the grasp of computer networking I displayed in last week’s puzzle.
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The author is anonymous; but an excerpt, republished in 1895 by Louis Klopsch, editor of The Christian Herald (in a collection called A Budget of Christmas Tales and also including, e.g., Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol”) is there attributed to “Mrs. W.H. Corning,” about whom I can find no information. Though disfigured at the end by a melodramatic dénouement, and throughout by sentimentalism (especially as regards one Aunt Phebe, a sort of female counterpart of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom), the novel gives us a close view of 19th-century Missouri life, and, more generally, a chillingly plausible account of the way in which average, moderately selfish people may be led by habit and tribal belief into horrific cruelty and casual murder.
“Evidently by an unpracticed hand” but “written with great freshness of feeling, and a fine perception of character.” Putnam’s, November, 1856
“We beg to congratulate” the author on the novel’s “good spirit and general truth to nature—at any rate, to nature as seen from a feminine point of view in New England”; it includes some “artlessly successful . . . character-painting.” Saturday Review, February 21, 1857
“The story . . . is interesting and readable, and that goes a long way towards making a good novel. The scenes of Western border life are vivid and graphic, and have the air of being real.” Athenaeum, March 21, 1857
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I apologize in advance if 16 Across seems too risqué to some solvers. Just imagine what I might have done with 27 Across, if I were not committed to the highest standards of decency.
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Mary E. Mann (1848-1929) wrote nearly forty novels between 1883 and 1918. Here she provides (in just one volume) memorable characters, an unusual setting, a bright style, and an engaging plot.
“Written in a brief, simple, unemphatic style, with never a note forced anywhere, this story yet produces a wonderfully strong effect. . . . Commonplace persons, with average standards of conduct and quite unideal, even vulgar instincts . . . are neither rated nor made fun of; merely observed with a wise tolerance and with a tender sympathy for the joys, and the sorrows, and the weariness they share with the more gifted tithe of humanity. This altogether uncritical yet observant attitude gives us a sense of novelty, and convinces us of the writer’s uncommon power.” Bookman, January 1899
“An excellent style, a command of natural, crisp, and vivacious dialogue, a firm grasp of character, and a dramatic imagination.” Speaker, February 25, 1899
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I have never been able to habituate myself to the simulated gore, on television and in the movies, for which the whole world seems to have such an insatiable appetite. Severed limbs, gushing blood, exploding heads—I don’t see the appeal. This crossword is my little act of protest.
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Dorothy Boulger, née Havers (1847-1923) published some 17 works of fiction under the pen-name Theo Gift between 1874 and 1901. She spent her late teens and early twenties (1861-70) in Uruguay, a setting carefully realized, along with some convincingly conflicted characters, in Lil Lorimer
“A charming and romantic novel. . . . The . . . characters are invariably lifelike. . . . The author has painted South America with a realistic fidelity.” Morning Post, April 16, 1885
The “descriptions of Urugayan town and country life . . .have all the appearance of being reproduced from original experiences”; The plot is true “to the complex realities of life.” Graphic, May 16, 1885
“The descriptions of life in that part of South America are both instructive and entertaining. . . . The character-drawing . . . is also good, and the plot . . . is simple and natural. But the story depends for its interest less on dramatic episodes and startling surprises than on portrayal of character and analysis of motive.” Spectator, July 25, 1885
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The foodstuffs alluded to in this puzzle would not make for a particularly healthy or appetizing meal, but it might be better than the one in the picture above, which seems to consist of a salad, a roast with a chocolate doughnut (?) on top of it, and a giant slice of cake. Appetizing or not, however, I like this picture—the huge fish painting at the left, the horses looking through the window, the dog statues on the hearth, and the wary reactions of the pretty woman and her guardian, seated on the right, to the blotchy-faced man who seems to be inviting himself to join them.
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014-Knife,-Fork,-&-Spoonerisms.puz
014-Knife,-Fork,-&-Spoonerisms.pdf
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Julia Rattray Waddington (1801-1862) wrote only four novels, all between 1838 and 1842. This one, illustrating the passion of envy, is notable for its vivid and original characters; one of the best, a middle-aged unmarried woman living in a small town, seems possibly autobiographical
It “contains passages of feeling and sparkles of humour, subdued in tone, but still true to life.” Athenaeum, January 26, 1839
“The result of watchful observation in collecting the materials, and of much care, thought, and pains, in working them up . . . Its merits are—a nice and miniature delineation of those persons and of that life with which the mass of novel-readers are familiar; much truthfulness of dialogue; a keen but never malicious satire . . . the whole being embodied in a story which sometimes runs and never drags.” Spectator, January 26, 1839
“The story is made up of such incidents and feelings as characterize every-day life. . . . There are abundant proofs that the writer is a close observer of mankind and manners, habitually reflective, and a good natured satirist. The dialogue is often particularly clever and effective.”Monthly Review, February, 1839
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http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph013983847
I recommend solving crossword puzzles as a pleasant alternative to thinking about the ultimate fate of self, earth, and universe.
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Bithia Mary Croker (1848?-1921) wrote nearly 50 novels between 1882 and 1920. This charming post-Victorian social comedy has motorcars and electric lights.
“A good story on a theme which always attracts, the woman who has to conquer the world.” Spectator, March 27, 1909
“An excellent story; crisply and vivaciously written, and thoroughly interesting from start to finish.” Bookman, April 1909
“It is written with an appearance of ease and competency of touch tending to disarm criticism.” Athenaeum, April 17, 1909
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