Novel 136: Margaret Agnes Paul, De Cressy (1856)

 
Evelyn de Morgan, Cadmus and Harmonia

Evelyn de Morgan, Cadmus and Harmonia

 

An impoverished but virtuous young lady attracts the love of a lord.

Here is another novel by Paul (see Novel 025):  ambivalent characters find themselves entangled in a subtle and apparently intractable conflict—until the author, out of time, or patience, or paper, suddenly resolves it by sending two characters to heaven and a third to South America.

“The persons have much consistency and reality about them; spirit is equable and well sustained throughout.” Spectator, June 28, 1856

It is “written in an unpretending, pleasing style.” Saturday Review, July 26, 1856

Download this week’s novel:

https://books.google.com/books?id=Wdq0wgEACAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Crossword 135: Decomposition

 
Evelyn De Morgan, The Love Potion

Evelyn De Morgan, The Love Potion

 

Last Tuesday I quietly embarked on this year’s summer novel / crossword series, a trilogy the recurring feature of which I’ll leave you to detect, or decipher, or deduce, for yourself.  If you’re planning to do this puzzle with young children, you should be warned that it contains not only partial nudity but (what’s even more dangerous to the developing brain) extreme crosswordese. However, nine hilarious theme answers make it all worthwhile.

Download this week’s crossword:

135-Decomposition.puz

135-Decomposition.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

135 Decomposition

Novel 135: William Gilbert, De Profundis (1864)

 
Evelyn De Morgan, Hope in the Prison of Despair

Evelyn De Morgan, Hope in the Prison of Despair

 

An honest couple do the best they can amid the squalor and vice of the slums.

William Gilbert (1804-1890), father of W.S. Gilbert (of Gilbert & Sullivan), wrote some twelve novels, many, like this one, about the London poor, whose miseries are narrated in a breezy, unsentimental tone, with much wry humor.

“In this story Mr. Gilbert never introduces ‘high life,’ nor people of the better class.  He reveals the mysteries of ‘London labour and the London poor’ in a low metropolitan neighbourhood, and all through the book we get no distinct peeps at any higher social condition.  To interest the general reader in such revelations requires great skill, pathos, and power.  Mr. Gilbert commands them all, and combines with them, in his writing, a deep, true knowledge of human motive and action. . . .  That Mr. Gilbert is a true artist we cannot but admit, for out of the simplest details of low life he produces characters whose very vividness enchains the attention.  He is amongst novelists a realist.  Neither imagination nor caricature influences his portraiture.  Men, women, and children are precisely what he sees them to be, and his vision is correct, his judgment true.” Manchester Guardian, February 28, 1865

“‘De Profundis’ is an excellently written, unvarnished narrative. . . .  The style well becomes the subject—plain, earnest, unaffected, and with an admirable quaint simplicity of language in relating the most heart-rending details, which is more effective than the most studied artificial effects, as it is perhaps more rarely attained to. . . . We have never read a story of humble life so well and unaffectedly told as this, and we recommend it as a wholesome contrast to the pictures of vulgar splendour and luxury under which our tables groan.” Westminster Review, April, 1865

Download this week’s novel:

http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph014418947

Novel 134: Eliza Lynn Linton, My Love! (1881)

 
Henry Nelson O’Neil, Painting con Amore

Henry Nelson O’Neil, Painting con Amore

 

A vain amateur artist-poet and an ill-tempered old lady oppress their young adult children.

Here is another novel by Linton (see Novel 044), with some especially entertaining minor characters, such as the thoroughly modern girl twins Gip and Pip.

“In ‘My Love!’ Mrs. Lynn Linton has devoted herself with much success to the portraiture of some of the baser passions, such as selfishness, meanness, hypocrisy, and ill temper.”  She “is brilliantly clever from first to last, and . . . there is not a dull page in her novel, though there are many that are disagreeable.  She writes brightly, vigorously, and eloquently; she is uncommonly painstaking and earnest; her dialogue is always apt and pointed; and many of her personages . . . are of singular merit and interest.  ‘My Love!’ in fact, is an unusually able and impressive book, its unattractive purpose notwithstanding.” Athenaeum, July 9, 1881

“My Love is a readable and amusing love story. . . .  It is a tale of love, pure and simple, although the three or more love affairs which run parallel to each other are illustrated or encumbered by a multiplicity of episodes; while a great variety of characters, vigorously sketched, are brought together into active and energetic collaboration.  Mrs. Lynn Linton generally inclines to the grave; but in this novel she is often humorous, and sometimes sprightly, or even comic. . . . Altogether Mrs. Lynn Linton has written an agreeable story; and it is agreeable chiefly because . . . she has always taken some pains to show the more amiable side of her least amiable characters.” Saturday Review, August 13, 1881

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/mylove__01lint/

v.2 https://archive.org/details/mylove__02lint/

v.3 https://archive.org/details/mylove__03lint/

Crossword 133: Literal Stem-Winding

 
George Elgar Hicks, A girl listening to the ticking of a pocketwatch while sitting on her mother's lap

George Elgar Hicks, A girl listening to the ticking of a pocketwatch while sitting on her mother’s lap

 

As the attached note informs you, to appreciate this puzzle properly you must fill it entirely with lower-case letters, as though you were e.e. cummings.  I’m thinking of taking up the lower case myself and insisting that the world refer to me as “david alfred bywaters.”  The combination of apparent humility (no big letters for itty-bitty little me!) with actual ostentation (I’m not like everybody else!) should prove irresistible.

Download this week’s puzzle:

133-Literal-Stem-Winding.puz

133-Literal-Stem-Winding.pdf

Solve this week’s puzzle online:

133 Literal Stem-Winding

Novel 133: F.F. Montrésor, The Alien (1901)

 
John Atkinson Grimshaw, A Wet Road by Moonlight, Wharfedale

John Atkinson Grimshaw, A Wet Road by Moonlight, Wharfedale

 

A mysterious man is claimed by an old woman as the son and heir who died thirty years before.

Frances Frederica Montrésor (1862-1934) wrote a dozen or so novels between 1895 and 1907.  This one has interestingly conflicted characters and (except for an incongruous South American episode) a good plot.

“Cleverly thought out, and full of sympathy and observance, it is a book suited to all kinds and sorts of people. The interest . . . is never allowed to flag, while the quality of its character drawing gives it a delicate atmospheric beauty by no means common.” Academy, November 9, 1901

This “adds to the sincerity, simplicity, and insight marking her other stories a larger motive and a stronger grasp. . . . There is a touch of Mrs. Oliphant in the quiet humor, in the detached view and appraisement of ‘the human,’ and in the enduring consciousness of eternal goodness.” New York Times, December 7, 1901

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https://books.google.com/books?id=tZEOAAAAIAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=editions%3ASuMAqlVMJGIC&pg=PR3#v=onepage&q&f=false

Crossword 132: Crossed Words

 
Albert Joseph Moore, Waiting to Cross

Albert Joseph Moore, Waiting to Cross

 

Here’s another crossword title that would do for any crossword whatsoever.  It’s the second in a groundbreaking series I began with Crossword 113: “Can You Fill This Out?”  I’m planning several sequels, including “Numbered Clues with Corresponding Answers,” “Across and Down,” and “It's Puzzling!”  And all these titles are, of course, available for use with my blessing to novice constructors. It’s my way of making a contribution to the common good.

Download this week’s crossword:

132-Crossed-Words.puz

132-Crossed-Words.pdf

Solve this weeks’s crossword online:

132 Crossed Words

Pointing Hand.png

A crossword of mine will appear today, May 30, in the Wall Street Journal.


Novel 132: Alice Price, A Wilful Young Woman (1886)

 
George Elgar Hicks, Woman's Mission - Companion of Manhood

George Elgar Hicks, Woman’s Mission - Companion of Manhood

 

The virtuous daughter of a country lawyer is scorned by her selfish, worldly mother.

Here is another novel by Alice Price (see Novel 021), much like its predecessor in its engrossing but implausible plot and its well-defined characters.

“A very readable story. . . .  Mrs. Price has drawn her dramatis personae with some power and vigour, and nobody could possibly find this novel tedious.” Academy, November 20, 1886

“This is an excellent tale, and shows by a conspicuous example, which some of our lady-novelists might profitably note, that it is quite possible to rouse a strong interest in a love-story without even an allusion to unlawful passion. . . .  There are, we think, defects in the plot. . . .   But, on the whole, for sound sense, good feeling and taste, and a style which can be both pathetic and humorous on occasion, this is a book which cannot easily be surpassed.” Spectator, January 29, 1887

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/wilfulyoungwoman01pric/

v.2 https://archive.org/details/wilfulyoungwoman02pric/

v.3 https://archive.org/details/wilfulyoungwoman03pric/

Novel 131: Anonymous, Hanworth (1858)

 
Heywood Hardy, The Meeting in the Forest

Heywood Hardy, The Meeting in the Forest

 

A young lady loves a nobleman, whose interest in her friend she misinterprets.

The author of this forgotten novel is identified neither in Fraser’s Magazine, where it was serialized, nor in its separate publication as a book—a pity, because it’s a good one.

“One of the best photographs of English society as it now exists.” Illustrated Times, October 9, 1858

“It is a pleasant story of society, written with good taste and unquestionable skill.” Examiner, December 25, 1858

“Unobjectionable pleasantness is a quality which carries books, as it does human beings, quietly and happily through the world, but it does not give room for much discussion. . . .  The girls are like real girls, but there is nothing marked about them.  The nobleman, who is a high-minded love-creating coquet, is not an impossibility.  There is no clever writing, no description of scenery, no boring of any sort. . . .  From beginning to end the story goes on quietly, evenly, and agreeably, showing a considerable power of observing family life, a subdued sense of the ludicrous, and an unusual turn for writing intelligible and consecutive English.” Saturday Review, January 1, 1859

Download this week’s novel:

https://archive.org/details/hanworthorigpub00hanwgoog/

Crossword 130: Eat Your Vegetables!

 
Valentine Cameron Prinsep, The Queen was in the Parlour, Eating Bread and Honey

Valentine Cameron Prinsep, The Queen was in the Parlour, Eating Bread and Honey

 

Many of us more advanced constructors, in addition to expressing our special identities, prefer to exclude from our puzzles bad things (like the NRA) and to fill them instead with good things (like our favorite celebrities), with the purpose of causing solvers to transfer their support from the bad things to the good things.  When I started making crosswords, I didn’t know I had this power over solvers, and I let the odd bad thing slip in, usually for the purpose of making the grid easier to solve; but I’ve learned better—what solvers expect and deserve from me, I’ve come to realize, is not guessable content, but cultural uplift and moral correction.

Now I’m appalled at how many OREOs we constructors routinely allow into our grids, not to mention OLEO (long a source of trans fat), and PIE.  So this puzzle is meant as a corrective; it’s filled with foods that are not only healthy, but trendy too! Those solvers who regulate their diet by crossword answers (have you wondered why you’re eating more fish since solving Crossword 127?) will thank me, decades from now, in their heart-healthy hearts, when, before taking their daily five-mile jogs, they read the obituaries of their Oreo-gobbling, pie-stuffed peers.

Download this week’s crossword:

130-Eat-Your-Vegetables!.puz

130-Eat-Your-Vegetables!.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

130 Eat Your Vegetables!

Novel 130: Robert Buchanan, Foxglove Manor (1884)

 
John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, The Temptation of Eve

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, The Temptation of Eve

 

A charismatic clergyman loves an agnostic squire’s wife.

Well known also as a poet, playwright, and critic, Robert Buchanan (1841-1901) published nearly 30 works of fiction, mostly in the last twenty years of the century. Despite some very silly plot twists at the end, this one provides a convincing portrait of self-deception and depravity.

“A very powerful study.  Mr. Buchanan has firmly grasped the character of a man of a sensuous and even refined imagination, but without moral fibre. . . . He has drawn the central figure with consummate skill, and told his story with great vigour, directness, and rapidity of narration.” Athenaeum, September 13, 1884

“As a study of morbid anatomy it reaches the highest level to which work of that kind can possibly attain.  From a dramatic point of view there is genius” in the handling of our reaction to the main character. Graphic, October 4, 1884

“It touches on that mysterious region in which the love of men to God is seen to have a deep and hidden connection with the mutual love of man and woman; and if we cannot pay it what would be the immense tribute of saying that it deals adequately with such a subject, we may at least declare that the attempt is marked by power and by a profound pathos, and associated with nothing unworthy.” Contemporary Review, 1884

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/foxglovemanornov01buchuoft/

v.2 https://archive.org/details/foxglovemanornov02buchuoft

v.3 https://archive.org/details/foxglovemanornov03buchuoft