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

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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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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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

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

Novel 343: Charlotte Yonge, The Stokesley Secret (1861)

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Nine sibling children save up to buy a poor neighbor a pig.

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For Yonge, see Novels 003, 053, 103, 155, 210, and 261.  This, a children’s novel, relatively brief and very charming, shows clearly her unique genius at characterization.

“There is something very natural and true in the picture of school-room life:  the little naughtinesses, the petty teasings, the small vexations, will be familiar to every member of a large family party.” Athenaeum, November 2, 1861

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Crossword 342: Stupid Puns

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This title is, of course, tautological.  All puns are stupid.  Words that sound the same have different meanings.  So what?  Who cares?  Why fill a crossword with such stuff when you can fill it instead with actors, or athletes, or other celebrities who embody your tastes, or values, or identity, or whatever?  Alas, having vowed to read every Victorian novel, I have no time for television, or movies, or social media; and so, not knowing the names of any celebrities, I’m left to embody my tastes, and values, and identity all by myself, and to fill my crosswords with stupid puns.

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342 Stupid Puns

Novel 342: Katherine Biggar, The Fair Carew (1851)

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A girl is led into a secret marriage with an army officer called to war.

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About Katherine Biggar, nothing is known but her name (which Troy J. Bassett finds in her publisher's accounts), and that she wrote two novels, of which this was the first.

It has “no ordinary merit.” “The authoress . . . would seem to have reckoned throughout her labours more upon the reader’s appreciation of a quiet pen well informed of the petty vices and foibles of human nature, than upon his desire to be enthralled by harrowing descriptions and astounding situations, that form no part of the natural and every-day business of life.” However, much of it is “tedious if not unprofitable.” Literary Gazette, November 29, 1851

It has an “extremely interesting plot”; an “unusual number of characters” are “finished with the nicest and most discriminating skill”; “one of the pleasantest, most sensible, and best-written works of fiction we have lately had to report on.” Bentley’s Miscellany, January 1852

A contrasting view:

“We cannot recognize in the The Fair Carew any power of eloquence, nor any acuteness of observation. The story is not without interest, though made up of threadbare materials. The best quality in the book is the power of sketching character, which, though it does not go beyond sketching, has nevertheless a distinctiveness and freedom of touch which give hope of future excellence.” Leader and Saturday Analyst, November 22, 1851

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https://archive.org/details/faircareworhusba01lond/

https://archive.org/details/faircareworhusba02lond/

https://archive.org/details/faircareworhusba03lond/

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Crossword 341: Progressive Ism

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The arc of history bends towards today’s crossword.

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341 Progressive Ism

Novel 341: Annie Edwardes, Archie Lovell (1866)

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A carefree girl’s unconventionality places her in a moral dilemma.

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For Edwardes, see Novels 158, 212, and 270.

“A very pretty story indeed, very well told, with incidents which are both plausible and natural”; for those who “like the true novel of comedy as it was before sensationalism triumphed.” Spectator, November 10, 1866

The heroine is “a bit of fresh and original painting.” Saturday Review, November 10, 1866

A somewhat contrasting view:

“A brisk, lively, and thoroughly readable tale, belonging to a low school of romantic art” marred by “false theory and Bohemian sentiment.” Athenaeum, November 17, 1866

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https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/35n82s/alma990147660440107026
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Crossword 340: Things Are Getting Tense

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Things are getting tense here at David Alfred Bywaters’s Crossword Cavalcade and Fortnightly Victorian Novel Recommender.  The homophone faction is no longer on speaking terms with the homonym faction, while the parsing faction is threatening to break off and start its own site.  Meanwhile, on the novel side, the female-novelist recommenders have made common cause against the male-novelist recommenders, each side rejecting out of hand my calls for mutual civility and reasoned debate, on the grounds that the bigotry motivating the other side deserves no consideration.  We have, in short, devolved into a state of hopeless partisan rancor.  How has this happened?  I blame social media, artificial intelligence, online pornography, capitalism, forever chemicals, digital currency, and food dyes.

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340 Things Are Getting Tense

Novel 340: Mrs. Wilfrid Ward, One Poor Scruple (1899)

Marcus Stone, An Offer of Marriage

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A worldly woman struggles to reject her Catholic upbringing.

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Josephine Mary Ward (1864-1932), a granddaughter of the Duchess of Norfolk, wrote some eleven novels between 1899 and 1932, of which this was the first.

“The description of an old Romanist county family is excellent. . . . ; a distinctly able book.” Athenaeum, April 8, 1899

“Mrs. Wilfrid Ward is in a position to write of Catholic society from the inside, and she has done so in a remarkable novel with a candour that will render her work attractive to thoughtful persons beyond the pale. . . .  it is excellently written and every character is well drawn. Notable too is its absolute fairness, which leaves the reader to weigh the heroine’s scruple for himself, aided but not biassed by the author. . . .  as a whole . . . a book that should make its mark.” Saturday Review, April 8, 1899

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https://archive.org/details/onepoorscruplese00ward/page/n7/mode/2up

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

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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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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

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