Novel 330: Catherine Crowe, The Story of Lilly Dawson (1847)

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An heiress, shipwrecked in childhood, is abducted and raised by smugglers.

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For Crowe, see Novels 023 and 272

“The authoress considerably oversteps very often the limits of probability, and suffers herself to be betrayed into gross violation even of the possible,” but “it is long since we have perused a novel which afforded us more pleasure. . . . No one can fail to be struck with a certain air of freshness and originality in the conception, and great vigour in the working out of the narrative; from the commencement to the end there is an endless series of adventures, varied at every turn. Altogether the story of Lilly Dawson is a delightful tale, related with vigour, full of striking and original scenes, and displaying . . . considerable acquaintance with human nature.” Sunday Times, March 14, 1847

“It is . . . in the consummate art with which a character itself not very prepossessing is invested with interest, in the power with which the gradual awakening of sense and intellect, from the prostration of servitude and tyranny is portrayed, and in the life and character which is impressed upon each accessory character, rather than in the mere incident and narrative, that lie the chief merits of this truly clever and able performance. It belongs to that class of story which, since the days of Fielding and Richardson, has been the most enduring of all works of fiction.” New Monthly Magazine, April 1847

Download this fortnight’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/storyoflillydaws01crow

v.2 https://archive.org/details/storyoflillydaws02crow

v.3 https://archive.org/details/storyoflillydaws03crow

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Crossword 329: Rethinking

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The purpose of this website, like that of all great modern art, is to bring about a radical rethinking of the human condition, of its meaning and purpose, its origin and end.  When refined people see abstract painting or hear atonal music, their very sense of reality is challenged; they come away changed, ennobled, completed.  Of course, there are those, not so refined, who see only smudges and hear only noise.  And so it is with my crosswords. While I interrogate the unstable relationship between signifier and signified, with the aim of leading the refined solver to rethink the very meaning of meaning, there are those who just think, “Oh here’s another stupid pun.” But I do not cross my words for them.

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Download this week’s crossword:

329 Rethinking.puz

329 Rethinking.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

329 Rethinking

Novel 329: Archie Armstrong, Under the Circumstances (1897)

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A young woman finds herself disinherited in favor of her guardian’s housekeeper.

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Archie Armstrong (1859-1925), a journalist and editor, wrote one play, one story collection, and one novel, this one.

Armstrong “can tell a story very pleasantly, and has an instinct for a plot.” Academy, March 6, 1897

A “well-told story of to-day, written in good English.” Athenaeum, March 20, 1897

“Distinctly good”; the heroine is “very lifelike.” Spectator, October 9, 1897

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https://archive.org/details/undercircumstanc00arms

Crossword 328: What’s It All For?

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What is it all for?  It’s a question that eventually occurs to every thinking mind.  Some turn to religion, some are content to rest in ignorance, and some distract themselves with more answerable questions like, “What’s 1 Across?”

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328 What's-It-All-For?.puz

328 What's-It-All-For?.pdf

Solve this fortnight’s crossword online:

328 What’s It All For?

Novel 328: Bithia Mary Croker, The Real Lady Hilda (1896)

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A woman returns from India to England and is treated ungratefully by a society leader whose life she saved.

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For Croker, see Novels 013, 073, 129, 183, and 259.

The novel “has a fair measure of that cheerful vivacity which distinguishes her from most female novelists of the day.” Athenaeum, March 7, 1896

A “bright tale” with “sharply humorous characterization.” Academy, June 6, 1896

Download this fortnight’s novel:

https://archive.org/details/10792986.1984.emory.edu

Crossword 327: It’s All Wrong

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Do you ever find yourself suddenly wondering whether everything you think and do is just wrong?  This happens to me from time to time.  For example, recently I found myself wondering whether posting crossword puzzles and Victorian novel recommendations for free on the internet every fortnight might not be the best use I could find for my time.  Crazy stuff!  But there’s no limit to the human mind’s potential for self-delusion.

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327 It's-All-Wrong.puz

327 It's-All-Wrong.pdf

Solve this fortnight’s crossword online:

327 It’s All Wrong

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Novel 327: David Christie Murray, Cynic Fortune (1886)

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A murderer inherits an estate from his victim and strives to atone to his daughter.

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For Murray, see Novels 009, 068, 127, 181, and 225.

“The elements of the story . . . are rather well worn” but “every part of the book is well written and lively.” Academy, September 18, 1886

“A very neatly told story, and it shows some good bits of character”; the author “provides his readers with a good deal of entertainment, and his well-known vivacity of style presents it in a very acceptable form.” Athenaeum, September 25, 1886

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https://books.google.com/books?id=tIRBAQAAMAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=cynic%20fortune%20murray&pg=PP11#v=onepage&q&f=false

Crossword 326: Padding

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What would we do without padding?  Everywhere—in the pages of student essays and of Victorian novels, through hours upon hours of concept albums and superhero movies, on the chests of women and the shoulders of men, in the résumés of politicians and the expense accounts of executives, on the knees of skateboarders and the walls of maniacs—padding enhances and protects us!  And yet how often is it mindlessly maligned!  Today’s puzzle offers in contrast a humble tribute.

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326-Padding.puz

326-Padding.pdf

Solve this fortnight’s crossword online:

326 Padding

Novel 326: Margaret Agnes Paul, Thomasina (1872)

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A girl grows up to oppose her tyrannical grandfather.

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For Paul, see Novels 025, 136, 198, 251, and 286.

“Within its own limits . . .  thoroughly satisfactory. . . . We would liken it to a finished and delicate cabinet picture, in which there is no brilliant colour, and yet all is in harmony.” Athenaeum, April 6, 1872

“An amusing, animated, and well-told story.” Spectator, May 18, 1872

Download this fortnight’s novel:

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990141810450107026

(Right-click (or control-click, if you have a Mac) on the “view digitized copy” links to download the novel’s two volumes in pdf form)

Crossword 325: Pulling Ahead

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In a few days some people will gather for an annual event in which they try to solve crosswords faster than each other. As I’ve said before (see Crossword 070), I prefer to solve crosswords at a speed that allows me to ponder their nuances and ramifications.  Lately I’ve wondered whether, like many of my personal preferences, this one is actually based on universal, objective truth. 

Doing something faster than somebody else is all well and good when the thing done is otherwise of little value or interest, like progressing along an oval track on foot or on a horse or in a car.  Such is not the case with savoring a cup of tea or a glass of wine, say, or strolling along a scenic lane, or solving a crossword.  But as crossword speed contests have proliferated, as crossword apps and web sites have added timers, crosswords have come to seem mere grid-shaped racing venues, equivalent to so many miles or meters of oval track, the view from which must be resolutely ignored by the committed competitor. 

The crosswords on this web site will always provide, for those who will take the time, profound insight into the rich variety of human experience.  Solve them slowly. 

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Download this fortnight’s crossword:

325-Pulling-Ahead.puz

325-Pulling-Ahead.pdf

Solve this fortnight’s crossword online:

325 Pulling Ahead

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A crossword of mine will appear Wednesday, March 26, in The Wall Street Journal

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Novel 325: Agnes Catherine Maitland, Rhoda (1885)

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A mother adopts a child so as to conceal his right to inherit an estate to which her own son seems heir-apparent.

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In 1889, Agnes Catherine Maitland (1849-1906) became principal at Somerville College, one of the first Oxford colleges for women.  Before that time she wrote a few novels, beginning in 1875, including this one.

After “somewhat conventional opening chapters . . . we find ourselves in the midst of a set of very real personages, drawn with a light but sympathetic touch. . . . In point of style the author is far in advance of the rambling method so frequent amongst female writers.” Athenaeum, November 21, 1885.

“A readable and, from the literary point of view, rather superior novel with a conventional plot.” Spectator, December 5, 1885.

Download this fortnight’s novel:

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990143693230107026

(Right-click (or control-click, if you have a Mac) on the “view digitized copy” links to download the novel’s three volumes in pdf form)

Crossword 324: Fashion Shoots

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We like to keep up with the fashions here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Fortnightly Victorian Novel Recommender.  When people started wearing their hats backwards, we wore our hats backwards.  And then when people started wearing them forwards again, so did we.  This helps us feel like we’re a part of something bigger and stronger than our sad individual selves crawling around a comfortless world pointlessly and alone. Have you seen our new polo shirts?

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Download this fortnight’s crossword:

324-Fashion-Shoots.puz

324-Fashion-Shoots.pdf

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324 Fashion Shoots

Novel 324: Annie E. Wickham, Loveday (1896)

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A Cornish farmer rescues from shipwreck a man of dubious antecedents, along with his daughter and niece.

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Annie E. Wickham published two novels, both in 1896.  Nothing else appears to be known about her.

The novel has “much originality” and “one of the most fascinating scoundrels who have ever appeared in fiction.” Spectator, April 4, 1896

It “has charm—charm of manner, of matter.  It is above all things fresh.” Athenaeum, April 4, 1896

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https://books.google.com/books?id=Ea1-twjyXJoC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=loveday%20wickham&pg=PP11#v=onepage&q=loveday%20wickham&f=false

Crossword 323: Nonconfrontation

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Let’s not fight about it.  You’re right.  Or if you’re not, it’s not important.  What’s important is getting along.  And we’d get along just fine if it weren’t for your wrong opinions and bad taste.  So just stop arguing and do the puzzle.

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323 Nonconfrontation.puz

323-Nonconfrontation.pdf

Solve this fortnight’s crossword online:

323 Nonconfrontation

Novel 323: Sarah Doudney, When We Two Parted (1885)

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A selfish heiress resents a beautiful former friend; meanwhile, a puritanical girl falls in love with a worldly actor.

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Sarah Doudney (1841-1926) wrote poems and hymns as well as over fifty novels between 1871 and 1906, many of them pious works for girls.

“Shrewd sayings in a sententious form are scattered thickly throughout these pages, and prove the author to be a close but kindly student of humanity. She possesses, moreover, a vein of quiet humour which emerges pleasantly at times, as well as an artistic restraint which spares the reader unnecessary details. ‘When We Two Parted’ is a pleasant story of the conventional order.” Athenaeum, March 28, 1885

“The lazy life of a small country town, where it is ‘always afternoon,’ is described with ease, and, if events are rare, the reader hardly recognizes the want of them. . . . Miss Doudney writes in a pleasant style. . . The book has a liberality of thought and treatment not common to works of this class.” Saturday Review, April 11, 1885   

A (somewhat) contrasting view:

“The only fault to be found with When We Two Parted is that it is too much of a good thing.” Academy, March 21, 1885

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The only digitized copy of today’s novel that I have found was once accessible from the British Library. But in October 2023, the British Library was shut down as a result of a ransomware attack, and now, after 16 months, its Victorian novel collection remains inaccessible; many links on my site do not work in consequence. I hope someday the collection returns; meanwhile, I trust nobody will mind if I post some British Library pdfs to an online storage drive, and links to said drive on this website, like this one, to today’s novel:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-n6YVdUjZQHjNqRX9ZiSEvX2EpfEriXu/view?usp=share_link

Crossword 322: Trash Bin

Ernest Normand, Evil Sought

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Here is yet another in my series of crosswords exploring the dark side of the human condition (see, for example, Crosswords 112, 114, 115, 224, 306), the filth and misery that other crossword constructors never come near.  Why don’t they, I wonder?  Is it that they are afraid—afraid, perhaps of the darkness within themselves, lurking just beneath their facile self-regard, their bourgeois pieties?

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Download this fortnight’s crossword:

322-Trash-Bin.puz

322-Trash-Bin.pdf

Solve this fortnight’s crossword online:

322 Trash Bin

Novel 322: Walter Raymond, Taken at his Word (1892)

Hubert von Herkomer, On Strike

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On a whim, a young man impersonates a manufacturer’s long-lost son.

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Walter Raymond (1852-1930) was a glove manufacturer as well as a novelist; he wrote some thirteen novels between 1888 and 1926.

The society of a provincial town is “described with a brisk humour by no means common”; “It has true drawing of human nature.  It shows circumstances acting on character, and character modifying and modulating into growth.” Saturday Review, May 21, 1892

It “has substantial merits which render its defects of comparatively little consequence. . . .; the book, as a whole, is well worth reading.” Academy, June 4, 1892

A contrasting view:

“It rarely happens that the reader is introduced to such an unlovely collection of characters”; but the author “displays an ingenuity that prompts one to hope he may yet exercise his talents on a less repulsive theme.” Athenaeum, August 6, 1892

Download this fortnight’s novel:

https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990148036800107026 ((Right-click (or control-click, if you have a Mac) on the “view digitized copy” links to download the novel’s three volumes in pdf form))

Crossword 321: Er, Er, What Was I Saying?

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I was saying something, I think, and it must have been something about crosswords, because this is where I introduce my fortnightly crosswords—but what?  Was it about the power of crosswords to do something?  Bend the arc of history toward justice maybe? No, no, that was something else. Cognitive function—that’s it.  Crosswords help maintain or even improve cognitive function in aging adults.  Studies have shown.  I’m pretty sure I read that somewhere.  Or did studies show that crosswords failed to improve cognitive function?  Or, actually, weren’t there also some studies that showed a correlation between crosswords and the arc of history? I think I read about those too somewhere, maybe in the New York Times, or was it The New Yorker?  I’ve got to look those up.  If I could only find my glasses. . .

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Download this fortnight’s crossword:

321 Er,-Er,-What-Was-I-Saying?.puz

321 Er,-Er,-What-Was-I-Saying?.pdf

Solve this fortnight’s crossword online:

321 Er, Er, What Was I Saying?

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Novel 321: Arabella Kenealy, Molly and Her Man of War (1893)

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Two cousins tour Italy on a yacht; one falls in love with an American sailor.

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Arabella Kenealy (1859-1938) wrote some 25 novels between 1893 and 1917, many with feminist implications.

“A spirit of audacious flippancy and rather determined light-heartedness informs the thing and keeps it moving.” Athenaeum, February 10, 1894

“Rollicking fun and humour enliven every page of Miss Kenealy’s book. . . .  Miss Kenealy is a daring satirist; sometimes she is a savage one. . . .  The story is an antidote for the ‘blues.’” Academy, March 3, 1894

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https://books.google.com/books?id=1ofH6LavXXUC&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=kenealy%2C%20molly%20and%20her%20man%20of%20war&pg=PA26#v=onepage&q&f=false

Crossword 320: Overworked Abbreviations

Charles Sillem Lidderdale, The Letter

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Where would crossword constructors be without abbreviations?  How many themes would have to be discarded if it weren’t for EEO and EOE? And the AAA and the ABA and the ACA and the ADA and the BBA and the BBB and the BBC?  Indignant solvers may complain that they’ve never seen a screen referred to as an SCR, that SSRs aren’t much talked about anymore, that SPR is not a season they’ve encountered outside of a crossword, that an STR is not and has never been an orchestra section, or a narrow maritime passageway, or a stock unit, or a riverboat, or a soft-shell clam.  And they have a point.  But what they don’t consider is just what these guessable letters may have spared them in the way of unguessable jargon, or trivia, or slang.  This puzzle is a grateful tribute to the hard-working, much-abused abbreviations that have got us all out of more than one tight cruciverbal corner with minimal semantic damage.

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Download this fortnight’s crossword:

320-Overworked-Abbreviations.puz

320-Overworked-Abbreviations.pdf

Solve this fortnight’s crossword online:

320 Overworked Abbreviations

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A crossword of mine will appear Wednesday, January 15, in The Wall Street Journal

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