Crossword 257: Unqualified

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We’ve been having more labor trouble here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Weekly Victorian Novel Recommender.  The new hires are sadly unqualified.  One of them crossed the name of a little-known actor with the name of another little-known actor.  We had to “let him go.”  Another crossed a Star Wars character’s name with a Star Trek character’s name.  We fired her too.  But there’s only so much one scrappy little crossword maker can do.  The same kind of thing is happening everywhere. Standards throughout the industry have grown ever more lax, degrading the entire crossword labor pool.

And meanwhile, what about the millions of desperate solvers who have turned to crosswords as a last resort—to stave off dementia, or addiction, or trauma, or boredom?  We cannot fail them!  We need national standards, a system of certification and licensure, and a well-trained enforcement arm, and we need them now!

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257-Unqualified.puz

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257 Unqualified

Novel 257: Robert Grant, The Confessions of a Frivolous Girl (1880)

William Merritt Chase, Portrait of Miss Frances V. Earle

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A New York heiress is courted by various young men.

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Robert Grant (1852-1940) wrote some fifteen novels, of which the last appeared in 1931.  This was his first, a light-hearted representation of the sad quandaries facing a fashionable young woman of the period.

“Mr. Grant writes without affectation, and appears to know New York society well; his book is decidedly attractive and lively.” Athenaeum, October 29, 1881

“The naïve account which the young lady gives of her triumphs is exceedingly amusing. . . . Very lifelike and amusing are her incidental sketches of the four gentlemen who specially honour her by their preference.” Spectator, November 5, 1881

A contrasting view:

“It is a long time since we met with a book—if, indeed, this is not entirely by itself—which credited our fair American cousins with so much vulgarity and so many little petty intrigues.” Academy, February 26, 1881

Download this week’s novel:

https://archive.org/details/confessionsoffri00gran

Crossword 256: Think Ahead

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Think ahead!  Don’t be caught unawares—plan for every contingency!  What about tomorrow, next year, ten years from now?  In twenty years, you’ll be twenty years older.  In seventy years, you’ll be seventy years older—or, probably, dead!  In two hundred years you and everybody who remembers you will be dead!  In five billion years the earth will be an empty cinder!

Well maybe, instead of thinking ahead, you should just do this crossword.

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256-Think-Ahead.puz

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256 Think Ahead

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A crossword of mine appears Monday, October 17, in Universal Crossword; another appears Thursday, October 20, in the Los Angeles Times.

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Novel 256: Lucy Clifford, The Dingy House at Kensington (1881)

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A virtuous young lady has two lovers and a miserly father.

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Sophia Lucy Jane Clifford turned to fiction to support herself after the death of her husband.  She published several successful novels under her married name (Mrs. W.K. Clifford); this one makes up for its lovers’-misunderstanding plot with its excellent style and interesting characters.

“Character forms the main interest. . . . Despite crude and ineffective passages, it repays perusal.” Spectator, October 29, 1881

“The chief charm of the tale lies in the character of the heroine, one of the most natural girls with whom recent fiction has made us acquainted. . . . The author possesses a lively style, keen observation, considerable powers of description, and a decided turn for epigram.” Athenaeum, November 11, 1881

The “chief incident on which the story turns is both feeble and improbable; but, for all that, The Dingy House at Kensington is a very good novel.” Saturday Review, December 17, 1881

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https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph014733351

Crossword 255: New Replacements

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Does the phrase “new replacements” seem redundant to you?  It doesn’t to us here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Weekly Victorian Novel Recommender!  A while ago some of our workers were threatening to form a union and bargain with us for a living wage.  We tried to explain that the annual earnings of the average crossword constructor wouldn’t keep a small dog alive through a mild winter—to no avail.  So of course we had to fire them all and hire replacements.  One of this new group did some research and discovered that we’d mentioned the NRA in some crosswords—not favorably, of course, but still.  They quit en masse, claiming they felt unsafe.  So now we’ve hired some new replacements.

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255-New-Replacements.puz

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255 New Replacements

Novel 255: James Payn, A Confidential Agent (1880)

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A frustrated inventor is unhappy in his job as jeweler’s agent.

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Here is another novel by Payn (see Novels 011, 081, 211), who is as entertaining as ever.

Payn “relieves the artifice of his stories with a good deal of human nature, generally of the genial kind, and is gifted with humour of the irrepressible order.” Spectator, November 13, 1880

“Mr. Payn’s fertility of invention and freshness of style are wonderful.” Saturday Review, November 27, 1880

“A well contrived story, full of incident, and sufficiently intricate to mystify the reader.” Athenaeum, December 11, 1880

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/aconfidentialag03payngoog/

v.2 https://archive.org/details/aconfidentialag02payngoog

v.3 https://archive.org/details/aconfidentialag00payngoog

Crossword 254: Seeking Adventure

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Are you seeking adventure, daring solver?  You’ve come to the right place!  You’ll find it in the attached puzzle!—that is, if  you redefine the word “seeking” (dividing it into two parts and interpreting the first part as a homophone), and apply the result to common phrases so as to arrive at new phrases having to do with things like carpet installation and insurance.  And if that doesn’t sound like adventure to you, well, maybe you haven’t come to the right place after all.

Speaking of C-kings, that’s the future Charles II at the knee of Charles I in this week’s painting; and here’s a timely bonus question for you: who is Charles II’s brother’s daughter’s cousin’s cousin’s second-cousin’s son’s grandson’s son’s brother’s niece’s son’s son’s son’s brother’s daughter’s eldest son?

(This week’s crossword, and the post introducing it, have been much improved by generous solver Charles Montpetit. Any genealogical miscalculations are, however, my own.)

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254-Seeking-Adventure.puz

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254 Seeking Adventure

Novel 254: Annie Thomas, Called to Account (1867)

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Three couples question their mutual commitments.

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Annie Thomas (1838-1918) wrote some 70 novels in 40 years and became perhaps the most critically vilified of all Victorian novelists.  Referring to her routinely by her married name, Mrs. Pender Cudlip (as though they scorned to be taken in by her title pages), the reviewers excoriated her twice yearly for her supposed outrages against style and morality.  “The English is slipshod and the story uninteresting, . . . the whole tone is petty, coarse, and vulgar throughout,” said The Academy of  A Narrow Escape (1875); “Two as worthless volumes as we have read for some time,” said The Athenaeum of The Maskleynes (1875); “There is certainly no pleasure, and we cannot think there is any profit, in reading a novel of this kind, it is so thoroughly cynical in conception and execution,” said The Spectator, of Blotted Out (1876); and so on, for novel after novel, year after year.  This one appeared early in her career, before the pattern was established; in fact its reviews were fairly positive—and well deserved: its representation of the ambivalence of several of its characters toward each other is subtle and convincing.

“The characters being real, the reader will find his interest powerfully excited.” Spectator, June 15, 1867

“There is a lightness of touch, a delicacy of finish, and a general refinement which makes this novel pleasanter than its predecessors. . . . The merit of the book consists in the interest turning upon the play of character rather than incidents.” Athenaeum, July 6, 1867

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v.1 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000003EB68#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-772%2C-128%2C3009%2C2543

v.2 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004223A#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-764%2C-127%2C2983%2C2521

v.3 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000003EB6E#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-778%2C-125%2C2949%2C2492

Crossword 253: Heart’s Ease

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Heart’s ease!  It’s a purple flower!  It’s an Elizabethan song!  It’s a Victorian novel! (Novel 003) And now, at last, it’s a crossword puzzle! As Shakespeare puts it:

When griping grief the heart doth toss,
And doleful dumps the mind oppress,
Then puzzles made of words that cross
With speedy help do lend redress.

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253-Heart's Ease.puz

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253 Heart’s Ease

Novel 253: Harriet Jane Trelawny, Sister (1879)

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An unselfish young lady tends her alcoholic father, comatose mother, and three younger sisters.

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Harriet Jane Trelawny (1821-1879) published only one novel, this one, just before her death in her late fifties. It’s a pity she didn’t start earlier or live longer, as this is a very good novel, in its quiet way, even if, like last week’s, it features that durable Victorian type, the self-sacrificing sister.

“It is a domestic story of a superior kind. . . .  The language is pure, and this is the more satisfactory because the narrative is not stiff and awkward, but has the freedom too often secured at a sacrifice of grace, if not correctness. . . .  The author . . . can reproduce the natural manner, expressions, acts, and expedients of ordinary men and women.” Athenaeum, October 25, 1879

A contrasting view:

“Sister is by no means an ill-meant effort, and shows a good deal of misdirected cleverness.  The author has unfortunately tried to copy two bad models at the same time—the garrison-flirtation novel and monster-of-self-sacrifice old-maid story.” Academy, December 6, 1879

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v.1 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000032AE4#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1102%2C-126%2C3668%2C2518

v.2 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000032AEA#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1097%2C-125%2C3630%2C2493

Crossword 252: Sad Partings

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Everything must come to an end, dear solver—the world, today’s crossword, even this sentence. . . .

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252-Sad-Partings.puz

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252 Sad Partings

Novel 252: Isabel Goldsmid, ’Tis an Old Tale, and Often Told (1839)

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A virtuous young lady, engaged to one man, falls in love with another.

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Isabel Goldsmid wrote two brief books—this one in 1839, and a Christmas story, “Shadows and Sunshine,” in 1850.  The latter begins “Christmas!—hallowed Church, blessed home festival!”—and so it would seem unlikely that its author is the Isabel Goldsmid (1788-1860) who married her first cousin, Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, a leading banker and social reformer known among other things for advancing the cause of Judaism in Victorian England. But I haven’t found any traces of any other Isabel Goldsmid.  The novel offers a first-person narrator (introduced by a censorious editor) who oddly combines romantic sentiment and detached amusement.

“The single volume before us has many claims to our indulgence. . . The tale is  a boná fide love-story, feelingly told.” Literary Gazette, March 23, 1839

“The subject chosen by our authoress . . . is as old as the world itself . . . yet the handling and the general arrangement evince an original genius.  There is a quiet humour and shrewd observation in many parts which speak of an acquaintance with varied society, and the power of turning opportunities to account.  That important social qualification, good-humoured satire, appears to be her leading characteristic, yet there is much of real feeling touchingly expressed.” Morning Post, April 2, 1839

A (somewhat) contrasting view:

“The incidents . . . are hackneyed, but the authoress has wisely kept clear of all the clap-traps of superhuman generosity, and impossible reconciliations.  She has painted life, not exactly as it is, but that portion of it to be found in the vale of tears and shadows.” Athenaeum, April 2, 1839

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https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph014598204

Crossword 251: I Recycle

John William Godward, The Mirror

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That’s right!  I recycle!  I separate cans, bottles, and paper.  I break down the boxes and I tear the labels off the cans.  I even tear the little plastic windows off the business envelopes and the pasta boxes.  And, like other people who use yard signs, bumper stickers, banners, tee shirts, and other such means to announce their possession of basic virtues, I thought everybody would be glad to know this about me.  You are glad, aren’t you? Of course. So here’s a crossword for you, in my honor.

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251-I-Recycle.puz

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251 I Recycle

Novel 251: Margaret Agnes Paul, Dorothy (1856)

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A self-willed girl faces adversity.

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Here is another novel by Paul (see Novels 025, 136, 198), featuring as usual carefully realized scenes of ordinary life.

“A pleasant, graceful book, written moreover in an earnest spirit.” Examiner, January 5, 1856

“A good and agreeable specimen of this kind of story; with sufficient variety of interesting occurences and well-drawn persons, a knowledge of society if not of life, and an unhackneyed moral.” Spectator, January 5, 1856

A (slightly) contrasting view:

“‘Dorothy’ is an excellent little story.  There are no exciting incidents nor highly-wrought sentiments, but a great deal of excellent delineation of character. . . .  A little more dash and vivacity and a greater variety of incident would be desirable in the author's future stories.  ‘Dorothy’ is too still and uneventful to interest the general reader as much as the talent it displays merits.” Athenaeum, January 26, 1856

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https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph014184126

Crossword 250: Ring of Ire

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Many people enjoy belonging to a group bound by a sense of grievance so that they can rage happily together, usually against some other similarly bound group that can rage in turn back at them.  This is fun in itself; it can also lead to solid personal gain, as one’s route to success is eased by one’s fellow enragees, who form a sort of mutually-supportive grievance collective, or ring of ire.  We here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Weekly Victorian Novel Recommender belong to no such ring; we’re happy with everybody and everything in this fortunate world, including other people and their rage, to which we here pay a small tribute.

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250 Ring-of-Ire.puz

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250 Ring of Ire

Novel 250: Ulick Ralph Burke, Beating the Air (1879)

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A young aristocrat is unexpectedly forced to make his own way in life.

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Ulick Ralph Burke (1845-1895), barrister and historian of Spain and Mexico, wrote two novels, of which this was the first.  His somewhat rambling plot gives him plenty of scope for satiric representation of English and Anglo-Indian society.

“The plot is interesting and well constructed, and there is a pleasant variety in the dramatis personae. . . .  The style, too, is crisp and occasionally epigrammatic. . . .  The characters . . . have . . . a distinct individuality.” Athenaeum, November 15, 1879

“We are indebted to Mr. Burke for a good novel, and a wholesome hero.” Spectator, December 6, 1879

A (somewhat) contrasting view:

“Beating the Air is not a strong book, but it is well meant, and, in its mild way, is far from being unpleasant.” Academy, November 22, 1879

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/beatingair01burk/

v.2 https://archive.org/details/beatingair02burk/

v.3 https://archive.org/details/beatingair03burk/

Crossword 249: Excess Verbiage

Henry Stacy Marks, The Odd Volume

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We here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Weekly Victorian Novel Recommender work tirelessly to express ourselves as clearly and concisely as possible. As a result, we are always having to haul away great piles of excess verbiage; however, we are careful to dispose of it in an environmentally responsible manner.  Much of it we donate to academic and philanthropic institutions, whose need for this commodity is insatiable.  But this week we’re experimenting with the possibility of recycling.

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249-Excess-Verbiage.puz

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249 Excess Verbiage

Novel 249: Margaret Roberts, A Younger Sister (1892)

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One daughter of a country squire in the Lake District longs to see the world; the other is content to stay at home.

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Margaret Roberts (1833-1919) wrote nearly thirty novels between 1857 and 1897; this is one of the last.  The heroine’s self-indulgent father is an especially well-done character.

Roberts “always gives us good work and always casts an unfailing charm over what she writes.” Manchester Guardian, May 10, 1892

“As a whole the sketch is worthy of the delicate hand” of the author. Academy, June 18, 1892

A contrasting view:

“Small beer.” Saturday Review, June 11, 1892

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http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000033BFA#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-887%2C-127%2C3237%2C2534

Crossword 248: Farmyard Echoes

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Short-sighted solvers might be inclined to scoff at 60 Across in this week’s puzzle.  But so did short-sighted critics scoff at Picasso’s cubes, at Rothko’s daubs, at Pollock’s drips—and who had the last laugh?  When crosswords cease to make any sense at all, solvers will look back at 60 Across, and its relative nearness to sense, with a kind of bitter nostalgia, while future cultural historians will hail its ground-breaking, boundary-smashing departure from the dull routine of sense-making that had previously held puzzledom in its thrall.  But go ahead and scoff—if you don’t mind the prospect of posterity’s scoffing at you.

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248-Farmyard-Echoes.puz

248-Farmyard-Echoes.pdf

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248 Farmyard Echoes

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A crossword of mine will appear August 24 in the Los Angeles Times.

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Novel 248: Sir Edward Bruce Hamley, Lady Lee’s Widowhood (1853)

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A virtuous young widow is left at the mercy of her late husband’s unscrupulous uncle.

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Lieutenant-General Sir Edward Bruce Hamley (1824-1893), the younger brother of last week’s novelist, likewise supplemented a military career with literary efforts.  This, his only novel (serialized in 1850, issued in book form in 1853-54), features, in addition to some sentimental ladies and gentleman officers, an amusingly bad alcoholic gambler.

“‘Lady Lee’s Widowhood’ is unquestionably one of the wittiest and pleasantest things that the press of our day has given to the public. . . .  It furnishes the largest return of enjoyment for twenty-five cents that can be found in any bookstore in the country.” Southern Literary Messenger, December 1853

A (somewhat) contrasting view:

“This is a pleasant book. . . .  The characters (with the exception of Colonel Bagot Lee) are not very complex specimens of human nature, but they are brightly coloured, and drawn with spirit.  The character of Colonel Lee is of a higher class, and well worked out. . . .   The story . . . drags somewhat at times, but it is withal a bright, healthy book, with a dash of hearty humour in it.” Athenaeum, February 18, 1854

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v.1 https://archive.org/details/ladyleeswidowho01hamlgoog

v.2 https://archive.org/details/ladyleeswidowho00hamlgoog