David Alfred Bywaters's Crossword Cavalcade & Fortnightly Victorian Novel Recommender. Every Saturday! Either a new language-torturing puzzle or an old novel by an unjustly neglected Victorian author. Why waste time on other amusements?

Crossword 197: Neither In Nor Out

John William Waterhouse, “I am half-sick of shadows, said the lady of Shalott”
John William Waterhouse, “I am half-sick of shadows, said the lady of Shalott”

Today’s puzzle represents the equivocal position of the crossword-constructor vis-à-vis society: forced to draw upon it for words and phrases, and yet confined within a self-sufficient, cryptic world of numbered blocks and dark spaces from which there can be no escape.  It’s tragic, in a way, but oh so beautiful.

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197-Neither-In-Nor-Out.puz

197-Neither-In-Nor-Out.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

197 Neither In Nor Out