Crossword 339: It Adds Up

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I’d been wondering— Why is my every move being recorded by a network of hidden cameras?  Why have all my writings, however private, been uploaded to secure online databases?  Why are my innermost thoughts being monitored in underground laboratories?  And then, the other day, while solving a crossword, and finding that, yet again, a word was clued exactly as I had clued it in an unposted crossword I had made not a week before, it struck me:  an international cabal of crossword publishers, unwilling to give me proper credit either in money or in fame, was secretly tapping into my mind for crossword content.  It all adds up!  If you find yourself admiring a feature of somebody else’s crossword somewhere, you would do well to remind yourself that in fact it’s probably actually something I thought up already.

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339 It-Adds-Up.puz

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339 It Adds Up

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Novel 339: Frederic Edward Breton, God Forsaken (1895)

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A Catholic woman marries a cold agnostic scientist; trouble ensues.

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Frederic Edward Breton (1864-1902) wrote eight novels between 1893 and his early death, of which this was the third.

“The book is certainly written with ability, and it is the kind of story to remain in one’s memory.” Academy, July 13, 1895

“The plot is most uncommon and very cleverly worked out, and the writer never lacks power.” Saturday Review, August 24, 1895

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https://books.google.com/books?id=uUFAAAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=frederic%20breton%20god%20forsaken&pg=PP7#v=onepage&q&f=false

Crossword 338: Some Assorted Answers

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I’ve been so busy! Everybody wants me to do everything, because I’m so good at it!  So, finding myself short of time for this fortnight’s crossword, I’ve had to settle for just some assorted answers, an untitled painting, and no more interesting introductory comment than this one.

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338 Some-Assorted-Answers.puz

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338 Some Assorted Answers

Novel 338: Edward Dutton Cook, Leo (1863)

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A man engaged to be married is led into money troubles.

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For Cook, see Novels 040, 111, 166, and 262.

The characters are “dashed off with spirit and coloured to the life. . . . This method . . . has a charm of its own. . . . The reader will find this style of storytelling as well and as cleverly executed as can reasonably be desired.” Athenaeum, December 5, 1863.

“Throughout amusing, the story is good, and is well and dramatically told. . . . It paints human nature fairly.” Westminster Review, January, 1864

v.1 https://archive.org/details/leo00cookgoog

v.2 https://archive.org/details/leo02cookgoog

v.3 https://archive.org/details/leo01cookgoog

Crossword 337: Coronation

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I meant to have this ready in time for Charles III’s coronation, back in May, 2023, but I felt it needed a couple years’ more polishing. So now its dedication is up for grabs.  Perhaps you, reader, are heir-apparent to a monarchy, or know somebody who is?  If so, drop me a line, and we can make a deal; I’ll settle for any minor position at the court (except groom of the stole).

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337-Coronation.puz

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337 Coronation

Novel 337: James Payn, Less Black Than We’re Painted (1878)

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A young gentleman falls in love with his father’s gamekeeper’s stepdaughter.

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For Payn, see Novels 011 , 081, 211, 255.

“The different actors are well placed upon the stage.  There is much humanity” about them. Athenaeum, November 9, 1878

“The cheerfullest, springiest, oddest book conceivable; and it overflows with humour and rings with merriment”; the plot is “clever and new.” Spectator, November 30, 1878

“There is great brightness and freshness in the style.  It is enlivened every here and there by happy turns of expression, and it sparkles with incidental and offhand observations that show genuine wit and humour. . . . A vein of comedy pervades the whole, giving its colour to more than one of the principal characters, and cropping up in some scenes that are excessively amusing.” Saturday Review, March 15, 1879

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https://archive.org/details/lessblackthanwer01payn

https://archive.org/details/lessblackthanwer02payn

https://archive.org/details/lessblackthanwer03payn

Crossword 336: Close with Clothes

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Have you ever noticed how certain words or phrases sound more or less the same—sometimes are even spelled the same—and yet have entirely different meanings?  This phenomenon was recently brought to my attention, and I had a thought:  what if one were to base a crossword on it?

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336 Close with Clothes

Novel 336: Elizabeth Robins, George Mandeville’s Husband

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A fastidious man and his sensitive daughter live uncomfortably with their wife/mother, a selfish, second-rate novelist.

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Elizabeth Robins (1862-1952) was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and raised by her grandmother in Zanesville, Ohio.  Her mother, an opera singer, went mad; her husband, an actor, drowned himself.  She worked as an actress first in America, then moved to London and established herself as a leading lady in the plays of Ibsen.  In the twentieth century she became a prominent supporter of women’s suffrage.  Amid all this, she found time to write several novels, among them this tragi-comic portrait of selfish literary pretense.

“A most excellent and powerful piece of work.” Athenaeum, August 25, 1894

The author is “evidently a literary impressionist who can succeed brilliantly in throwing off a vivid and dramatic conception of a group that interests him.” Spectator, August 4, 1894

A contrasting view:

“Surprisingly clever in its way, being direct and simple” but “exaggerated”: “the tables are turned on the ‘new woman’ with a vengeance, and with a degree of hot-headed malice and a lack of logic worthy of the ‘new woman’ herself in her newest aspect.” New York Times, August 6, 1894

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Crossword 335: Is That a Dog I Hear?

John Collier, Love Me, Love My Dog

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I used to have a dog.  I loved him, and he loved me.  But since he left this sad world, I’ve found dogs annoying:  the little yappy dogs next door yapping their little yaps all the yappy day, the muscle-y dogs lunging at me on the sidewalks, the sweatered and bootee-ed stroller dogs that complicate my efforts to regard their owners with the respect I try to confer on all humankind—they annoy me.  Now, my old dog had his bad habits.  He would leave his scent everywhere. He would shed all the time.  He would try to kill the plumber.  But he had a deep, rich voice, respected pedestrians, would have scorned to wear bootees—was, in short, just a better dog than the dogs of other people nowadays. This puzzle is dedicated to his memory.

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335-Is-That-a-Dog-I-Hear?.puz

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335 Is That a Dog I Hear?

Novel 335: Lucy B. Walford, The Mischief of Monica (1891)

Sir William Quiller Orchardson, A Social Eddy (Left by the Tide)

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Two fashionable young sisters go to live with their merchant uncle outside Liverpool.

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For Walford, see Novels 018, 066, 121, 174, 227, and 279.

“Bright and pleasant reading,” with “abundant interest and movement.” Athenaeum, October 10, 1891

It is “certain to be enjoyed”; Walford “has a good deal of . . . persistent and interested wakefulness of sympathetic observation” which gives “a charm to the apparently charmless commonplaces of ordinary life.” Spectator, October 31, 1891

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https://archive.org/details/mischiefmonica01walfgoog

Crossword 334: The Mad Hatter

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What the world needs now is a mad hatter—not the Lewis Carroll tea party attendee with a broken watch and an insoluble riddle, but a maniacal putter-on of hats, a superhuman being whose mission it is to make everybody wear a hat, just like everybody used to do, before the modern obsession with being casual put an end to this wholesome practice.  In the happy past, we didn’t have to look at the hairlines of strangers, and, since our eyes were pleasantly shaded by hat brims, we didn’t have to wear the sunglasses that now make us seem to each other hatefully dead-eyed and cruel.  Who knows how much of the social conflict that our society has endured since the 1960s is just a side-effect of soulless stares and disagreeable haircuts?

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334-The-Mad-Hatter.puz

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334 The Mad Hatter

Novel 334: Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Strangers and Pilgrims (1873)

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In spite of herself, a beautiful but selfish young woman falls in love with her father's strong and virtuous curate.

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For Braddon, see Novels 004, 061, 115, 170, 222, 223. and 280.

“One of the saddest stories that we have read”; the characters are “thoroughly human, and, at the same time, thoroughly pitiful.” Athenaeum, July 26, 1873

“A painful story, and confused in its rendering of character,” but “there is a certain quality of intention in the characters of this book which carries the reader over the faults and dreary bits.” Saturday Review, August 23, 1873

For this fortnight’s novel, download

v.1 https://archive.org/details/strangerspilgrim01brad

v.2 https://archive.org/details/strangerspilgrim02brad

v.3 https://archive.org/details/strangerspilgrim03brad

Crossword 333: Shrift

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This puzzle comes with an important disclaimer:  the “shrift” it provides is not effective as a means of remitting sin or conferring absolution.  If that’s what you want, you need a priest.

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333 Shrift

Novel 333: Frances Milton Trollope, One Fault (1839)

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A woman suffers from her husband’s bad temper.

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For Trollope, see Novels 029, 079, 138, 189, 190, 191, and 269. The reviews of this one were not particularly favorable.

“Though it excites little interest and furnishes little entertainment, it is agreeably written, and contains a sufficient number of pleasing scenes and descriptions to render it very readable.” Spectator, November 30, 1839

“Mrs. Trollope no doubt draws forcibly, but there is a rigidity in her characters which removes them from ordinary life.” Literary Gazette, November 30, 1839

“A very inferior novel . . . dull and disagreeable; . . . nothing so preposterous as the one-faulted husband ever existed.” Morning Post, December 6, 1839

v.1 https://archive.org/details/onefaultnovel01trolrich

v.2 https://archive.org/details/onefaultnovel02trolrich

v.3 https://archive.org/details/onefaultnovel03trolrich

Crossword 332: Change Partners

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Are you feeling unhappy?  Do you wonder whether you’re missing out on life?  Do you fear you’ve failed to reach your full potential?  Plentiful examples in film and fiction have a solution for you:  get divorced!  If you’re single, get married, then get divorced!  If you’re divorced, get remarried, then get redivorced!  Try again and again until you’ve divorced the right person.  Then you’ll be happy.

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332 Change-Partners.puz

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332 Change Partners

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A crossword of mine will appear next Saturday, July 5, in The Wall Street Journal

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Novel 332: Elizabeth Anna Hart, Miss Hitchcock’s Wedding Dress (1876)

Thomas Benjamin Kennington, The Wedding Dress

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A dressmaker crashes a ball in the dress she was hired to make.

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For Hart, see Novels 006, 140, and 239.

“The incidents are slightly improbable, but cleverly strung together. . . .  The sooner the story is dramatized the better, for after reading the book we want to see the play.” Boston Globe, March 7, 1876

“An impossible story, with some very painful incongruities, and not a few betrayals of intellectual feebleness on the part of the author. And yet we imagine that there are many respectable three-volume English novels without half its brightness, and ingenuity, and readableness; many novels, of apparently much more thought, without anything like the natural quality, the insight, and even the poetry of this entertaining little book.” Scribner’s, May, 1876

The heroine’s charm is such as to “disarm any critical faculty which the reader may possess, which is fortunate, as otherwise sensible persons might feel obliged, in justice to themselves, to declare it was all nonsense all together.” Athenaeum, September 2, 1876

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https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990147383550107026

Crossword 331: Or Else

John William Waterhouse, Magic Circle

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It has lately come to my attention that the Internet is infested with a great many people who have wrong opinions and do bad things.  And I have to ask myself—and invite you, dear solver, to ask yourself as well—does not our use of the Internet render us complicit with these wrongheaded people and responsible for these bad things?  I fear it does. So I’ve decided that if the Internet does not remove these people within a reasonable amount of time, I will withdraw from it myself and invite you to do the same.  Reform, Internet, or else!

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331 Or-Else.puz

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331 Or Else

Novel 331: Frank Barrett, A Recoiling Vengeance (1888)

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An attorney attempts to guide a client’s estate to a proper recipient.

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Frank Barrett (1845-1926) wrote some 40 novels in a variety of subgenres between 1874 and 1914; this one has a particularly engaging narrator.

“A very pretty, natural, and refreshing story is A Recoiling Vengeance, although a slight and artless one. . . . in its clearness and brightness it reminds us a little of the manner of Anthony Trollope.” Saturday Review, September 8, 1888

Barrett has “a style which has ease and freedom, and at the same time a certain grace and restraint. . . . It is a bright, taking story, rendered all the more attractive by a vein of very pleasant humour which runs through it.” Spectator, September 29, 1888

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https://archive.org/details/recoilingvengean00barr

Crossword 330: SB

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Some time ago (see Crossword 317) I promised a series of crosswords honoring the Periodic Table of Elements.  So today I give you “SB,” the chemical symbol for antimony.  But SB can mean many other things as well, according to Wikipedia:  San Bernardino and Santa Barbara, the Solomon Islands and South Burlington, Vermont, the Statistic Bureau of Japan, and St. Bonaventure.  Any solver who understands Wikipedia and is able to add to this list “A crossword puzzle by David Alfred Bywaters” may apply to me for an autographed copy of this puzzle, suitable for framing.

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330 SB.puz

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330 SB

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A crossword of mine will appear Wednesday, June 11, in The Wall Street Journal

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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

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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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