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Since I intend my puzzles to last forever, I will add an explanation of this one, for the benefit of the solver of the future.

PPO, then, future solver, once stood for “Preferred Provider Organization.”  Years ago, health care was arranged rather to maximize the profits of private industry than to promote public health.  If you expected ever to need health care, you were advised to buy “insurance” from a private entity:  you would pay this entity a monthly fee, and in return it would pay a percentage of your doctor’s fees—over a certain fixed “deductible” amount.

So say you paid this entity $2000/month, in exchange for which it agreed to cover 80% of your medical costs after a $1000 annual deductible.  Say that, after 30 years of this,  you got a disease and had to go to the hospital for a week.  And say the hospital charged you $101,000 for your treatment.  Lucky you!—you paid only $21,000 (your deductible plus 20% of your costs); your insurer covered the remaining $80,0000!  And lucky insurer—having collected $720,000 from you over your 30 years of participation, it still got to keep $640,000!  It seems a little crazy now, future solver, but the theory was that everybody benefited.  The hospital got lots of money, the insurer got lots of money, and you didn’t die.

But there was a further little hitch, or snag, in the process.  Most insurers agreed to pay 80% of your fees only if you paid them to certain selected doctors, who had previously made a deal with those insurers.  Otherwise the insurers would pay only 60%, or 40% of your costs, or maybe even nothing at all.  These selected doctors were collectively known as a “Preferred Provider Organization” or PPO.

So, future solver, however bleak things may seem at the moment, don’t forget to remind yourself—at least it’s not 2020.

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Download this week’s crossword:

146-PPO.puz

146-PPO.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

146 PPO

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A selfish woman sends emissaries after her runaway orphan niece, with unanticipated consequences.

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Here is another novel by Cobb (see Novel 043), just as well-plotted, and witty, and brief as the last.

“In The Dissemblers, Mr. Cobb has constructed an amusing intrigue on the basis of a most ordinary domestic situation. . . .  It is continually funny, not in phrase, but in its predicaments.”  Academy, November 3, 1900

“The Dissemblers . . . shows that Mr. Cobb has by no means exhausted his large fund of pleasant invention nor abated one jot of his vivacity and sharp staccato treatment. . . .  In his limited range it would be hard to find an English novelist to equal Mr. Cobb, and we must cherish all the light comedy that the national temperament allows us.”   The Speaker, November 17, 1900

“This is as dainty a comedy of errors as has appeared for many a month.  The plot is as meagre as such a web of trifles should be, the portraiture is delicate and truthful, and there is a steady flow of deft and sprightly wit, with several unimpeachably skilful situations.”  Saturday Review, November 17, 1900

“Mr. Cobb has proved again in ‘The Dissemblers’ that he is a first-rate author with whom to spend an idle hour.  He imposes no tax upon the mind or emotions, and is always amusing and entertaining.  All his characters are delightful people who keep doing interesting things with a vengeance, and, however seriously they may take themselves, there is an element of quizzicality in his handling of them that is a direct appeal to the reader’s sense of humor.” Chicago Tribune, November 24, 1900

Download this week’s novel:

https://books.google.com/books?id=9t8NAAAAYAAJ

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There seems to be a trend nowadays of including more proper names in crosswords, on the theory that it’s fun to allude to cool stuff that fun, cool people like us like.  I haven’t joined this trend, possibly for selfish reasons:  my favorite Victorian novelists almost never show up in crosswords, whereas every other puzzle seems to include at least one Star Wars reference, however gratuitous: THE, for example, clued “Jabba ___ Hutt” or “Use ___ force, Luke!”

So I try to keep proper names out of my fill and also, especially, my themes.  I sigh, more in sorrow than in anger, when I encounter yet another puzzle where the theme turns out to be a set of actors whose last names are also the names of dog breeds, or whatever.

This time, however, I’ve compromised my standards: half the theme answers contain proper names.  But at least they’re reasonably passé proper names—a vice-president whose term ended in 2000, a children’s cartoon that premiered the same year, and a 1939 movie based on a 1900 novel.

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145-And-There's-More!.puz

145-And-There's-More!.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

145 And There’s More!

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An impulsive French girl, raised by a gambler, is aided by an English doctor.

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Eleanor Frances Poynter (1840-1929), the sister of the painter Sir Edward John Poynter and of the translator Clara Bell, wrote some seven novels between 1870 and 1892, of which the first is this poignant story of vulnerable innocence in a hard and confusing world.

“It is an agreeable task to record a book which can be read with genuine pleasure.  My Little Lady’s history” is “written in a simple graceful style.” Athenaeum, December 17, 1870

“The whole book is charming; quietly told, quietly thought, without glare or flutter, and interesting in both character and story.”  Saturday Review, December 17, 1870

“It is really pleasant to read a novel like ‘My Little Lady’—a simple story, so vividly potraying a few characters that we can imagine we have known them, felt all their troubles, and rejoiced in their happiness.”  Examiner, January 7, 1871

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000004766A#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-629%2C0%2C3742%2C1962

v.2 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000003F32A#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=6&xywh=-652%2C0%2C3781%2C1982

v.3 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_00000003F330#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-1679%2C-126%2C4802%2C2518

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I’m afraid I took up the catchy-sounding phrase that supplies today’s puzzle’s title without any clear idea of what it meant.  Something to do with airplane seating policies?  Corporate layoffs?  Is it a terse statement of the cultural truism that, when the worst things grow popular, the best are neglected?

According to Wikipedia, it is most commonly used to describe an accounting method designed to evade taxes in times of inflation.  Oh well.  It makes a good crossword title anyway.

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144-Last-In,-First-Out.puz

144-Last-In,-First-Out.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

144 Last In, First Out

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An innocent and virtuous young lady falls in love with her uncle's ward.

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Here is another novel by Wallace (see Novel 074), with the same merits (quiet, vivid characterization, a good style) and the same defect (a painfully hard-to-swallow lovers’ misunderstanding).

“This is one of the best kind of ‘fashionable novels’: it is not only free from the vulgar impertinences of the ‘silver-fork school,’ but has the tone of good society, and, better still, a vein of pure and healthful sentiment.  It gives an animated picture of country life among the upper class of gentry at the present day, sketched with the skill and tact of a nice observer; who possesses the art of indicating scenes and persons with a few graphic touches, and the power of making characters act and talk naturally.”  Spectator, January 17, 1846

“It is a very fairly drawn picture from the life.  It deals with the men and manners of our own time, and the author has been content to take the world as he finds it, without attempting to create imaginary persons or impossible events. . . .  Altogether this is one of the best fictions the season has produced.” Critic, January 24, 1846

“Here is the best novel of the Austen school we have ever seen, with real men and women, natural situations, brilliant dialogue; but there are no stage tricks in it, no startling effects, no murders, adulteries, or seductions, and only one death of any sort—consequently it has received very moderate praise in England, and no one in America seems aware of its existence. . . .  There have been very very few better novels written for the last six years.”  Literary World, March 27, 1847

Download this week’s novel:

v. 1 https://archive.org/details/margaretcapelnov01wall

v. 2 https://archive.org/details/margaretcapelnov02wall

v. 3 https://archive.org/details/margaretcapelnov03wall

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One theme per puzzle—that’s always been the rule of themed crosswords.  But I find myself asking—why? Why adhere blindly to the worn-out conventions of the past?  Why thwart human progress with hidebound rules of unity and order?  So what if a few reactionary members of the bourgeoisie are shocked or confused?  Did that keep Wagner from sonic discord and narrative incoherence? Picasso from crudity and distortion? The Bauhaus from faceless rectangularity?  Let the Philistines be shocked; let them be confused!  So much the better!  Let a crossword have not just one theme, but two!!

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Download this week’s crossword:

143-PR-Issues.puz

143-PR-Issues.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

143 PR Issues

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A young lady tries to live like the heroine of a novel.

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Francis Edward Paget (1806-1882), rector of Elford, wrote half a dozen novels promoting his High Church views, beginning in 1833.  This, a satire on the novels of M.E. Braddon and her kind (though it alludes also to Scott and Bronte), features an intriguing narrator, foolishly credulous and at the same time cleverly self-aware.

“This satire is quite just, because it exactly hits the great artistic fault of the sensational novel, the use of illegitimate means to produce an effect upon the reader.” Spectator, August 8, 1868

“A happier thought than the combination of a ludicrously sensational plot with a ludicrously sentimental heroine . . . could not have been devised.”  Athenaeum, October 17, 1868

Download this week’s novel:

http://explore.bl.uk/BLVU1:LSCOP-ALL:BLL01016843384

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Those other, Brand-X constructors fill their crosswords with stuff—memes, actors, athletes, movie characters—that arose yesterday and will be forgotten tomorrow.  Mine are designed, as the title of this one implies, to grow more rich and satisfying as the years pass.

To be sure, if it’s 2050, and you’re savoring this crossword along with your well-aged 2020 bottle of Lafite-Rothschild, you may be mildly puzzled by 50 Across—but, when you review the historical context, you’ll be able to congratulate  yourself and your peers on the  advances in rationality and humanity your country has made in the last thirty years.

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Download this week’s crossword:

142-Like-Fine-Wine.puz

142-Like-Fine-Wine.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

142 Like Fine Wine

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A poor young lady, dislocated from her quiet home, is taken up by some distant (and dubious) relations with a taste for travel.

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Here is another fine novel by Sidgwick (see Novel 082):  it features a virtuous heroine at the mercy of an amusingly selfish and self-deluded couple.

“A novel from the pen of Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick is always welcome, for while she steers a middle course between the rose-coloured optimism of the mid-Victorian novelists and the devotion to the doleful of their successors, the excellence of her matter is always enhanced by the alertness and vivacity of her style.”  Spectator, November 17, 1900

“As usual, Mrs. Sidgwick has written a good book.  She possesses, above the ordinary run of writers, the power to treat a comparatively slight plot in such a manner that it becomes absorbing, engrossing, a thing of paramount interest, till the last line is read; the power, too, to draw, with certain touch, a weak, or a false character, without a hint of cruelty or exaggeration.”  Bookman, December 1900

“Many poorer novelists seem more discussed than Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick . . . yet she has staunch admirers, and in the memories of discriminating readers lingers as a writer of pleasant and wholesome, yet not common, stories.  ‘The Inner Shrine’ is worthy to rank with these by virtue of an agreeable manner and good matter, a quiet thoughtfulness and a restful sense of humour.  The people in it are interesting, because the author has found a way of making them reveal themselves; they and the situations in which they are placed are at times arresting and even poignant, though the verge of caricature or sensationalism is never approached.” Athenaeum, January 12, 1901

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https://books.google.com/books?id=jSU8AQAAMAAJ

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Oh the poor middle class!  Not only is its wealth increasingly appropriated by billionaires, but for well over a century it has been routinely derided in high culture.  Hipsters everywhere decry its foolish tastes, activists its mistaken values.  No matter the authenticity of your own non-bourgeois (proletarian? aristocratic?) credentials—pronounce a thing "bourgie" and your title to sophistication is assured.

Well, though I will here and now claim (why not?) to have myself no connection whatsoever with the middle class, I feel sorry for it sometimes.  I hope this crossword tribute will make it feel a little better.

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Download this week’s crossword:

141-Middle-Class.puz

141-Middle-Class.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

141 Middle Class

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A young Scotswoman, living with her rector uncle in a Welsh village, is wooed by various men.

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Eliza Sophia Maine (1838-1891) wrote five novels in the 1870s, of which this is the first.  Its ironically self-aware narrator and deftly-handled plot ought to have made its author better known than apparently she became.

A “pleasant little novel” that “deals with domestic life and never ventures beyond the natural limits of feminine knowledge.” Saturday Review, September 24, 1870

“The story is simple and unpretentious, but is told in so fresh and graceful a manner as to render it most acceptable.”  Athenaeum, October 8, 1870

“Life and character in the remote Welsh valley are well drawn, and the narrator tells her story with vivacity in a natural, unaffected tone.”  Spectator, January 28, 1871

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https://books.google.com/books?id=XvUBAAAAQAAJ

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If you wait till tomorrow, you’ll find the answer to 24 Down in the title of my crossword in the Los Angeles Times, to which this one serves as a sort of prequel.  Meanwhile, here’s a painting that—while not very clearly related to either puzzle—may at any rate provide a little imaginary relief from this summer’s weather, by which so many of us find ourselves mercilessly beaten down.

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140-Beaten-Down.puz

140-Beaten-Down.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

140 Beaten Down

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Newlyweds struggle to get by on an inadequate income.

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Here is another novel by Hart (see Novel 006).  It begins as a touchingly comic domestic story and ends in exciting sensationalism.  Its heroine is well delineated in both parts.

“Though the story is slender, it has some capital sketching, and abounds in the characteristic humour and observation of life which distinguish the writings of this author. . . .  We may recommend the story as delightful reading, and also the binding, paper, and printing of the book as most creditable to its popular and enterprising publisher.” Illustrated Review, January, 1874

“A very lively and pleasant little tale, vivid in its interest, and the harrowing part of it not too prolonged for endurance.”  Spectator, January 31, 1874

“We confess to having been much amused.”  Scribner’s, March 1874

Download this week’s novel:

http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/f/89vilt/oxfaleph014737729

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This puzzle provides, as a bonus, a little lesson in astronomy.  If, like me, you tend to forget how the solar system is organized, its theme answers can help: repeated in order of appearance, they make up a catchy 9-word, 60-letter mnemonic!

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Download this week’s crossword:

139-Inner-Planets.puz

139-Inner-Planets.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

139 Inner Planets

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A naive middle class girl marries a fashionable young man.

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Eleanor Eden (1826-1879), niece to Emily Eden (see Novel 036), wrote several children’s novels in addition to this one for adults. Its troubled-marriage plot is supplemented with a pleasant description of life in a village outside London.

“‘Dumbleton Common’ is a charmingly pleasant book; it is full of genial kindheartedness, and there is a thoroughly well-bred tone throughout.  The story is as slight as can hold together; but every individual in it has a distinctive character, and is made of flesh and blood, with a reasonable soul to match. . . .  There is much skill and lightness of hand evinced in the many characters that pass before the reader; for though the incidents are slightly drawn, the personages are numerous.” Athenaeum, March 9, 1867

“The Hon. Eleanor Eden, like the Hon. Emily Eden, has a perfect command of that light, graceful, easy style which is the nearest literary approach to the pleasant chat and gentle raillery of the best English society. . . .  Dumbleton Common, like The Semi-Detached House, is a most graceful and lively picture of a little society. . . .  There is no sketch that is not lively, and not a false stroke of either sentiment or tone from the beginning to the end of the little story.”  Spectator, March 16, 1867

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/dumbletoncommon01eden

v.2 https://archive.org/details/dumbletoncommon02eden

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So you’ve never heard Fats Domino's 1957 recording of “What Will ___ My Heart?” (44 Across)?  Correct that omission right away.  Then try the 1936 version by Andy Kirk and forgotten crooner Elmer “Pha” Terrell.  Then try Dinah Washington’s version, from 1956.  Has your rage against my long partials and obscure cluing turned to gratitude?

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Download this week’s crossword:

138-Fowl-Fill.puz

138-Fowl-Fill.pdf

Solve this week’s crossword online:

138 Fowl Fill

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A clever and ambitious noblewoman, displaced in inheritance by her infant brother, plots against him.

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Here is another novel by Frances Trollope (see Novels 029 and 079), mother of Anthony and T. Adolphus, mother-in-law of Frances Eleanor.  Written early in her career, it combines involving melodrama with small-town social satire.

“The idea . . . is a very bold one, and has been wrought out with great skill.” Athenaeum, September 12, 1835

“The outline of the story is well conceived, and though there are gross improbabilities in the working out of the plot, it is in the main circumstances ingeniously involved.  Some of the little sketches of society in the neighborhood of a country town are fresh and animated; and some of the characters are happily conceived and well sustained.” Examiner, October 25, 1835

Download this week’s novel:

v.1 https://archive.org/details/tremordyncliff01trol

v.2 https://archive.org/details/tremordyncliff02trol

v.3 https://archive.org/details/tremordyncliff03trol

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This is the third and final installment of the trilogy—hence the “cease” of “decease.”  Some critics may think I’ve got the order wrong, as “Defeat,” “Decease,” and “Decomposition” are, in a sense, the final three chapters of anyone’s biography.

But the more subtly observant puzzle connoisseur will notice that the first pun of the first of the series returns as the final pun of the last of the series, giving the whole a pleasingly cyclical form that, in the face of decline and decay and despair, hints hopefully at renewal.

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Download this week’s crossword:

137-Decease.puz

137-Decease.pdf

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137 Decease

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A quiet young woman introduces her best friends to one another, with unexpected consequences.

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Here is another novel by Butt (see Novel 045).  It has several vivid characters, and three plots, of which the most prominent is also the best.

“Delicia is one of those womanly portraits that can be drawn only by a high-minded writer. . . .  On the whole, the story will repay the reader’s trouble.”  Athenaeum, July 5, 1879

“That ‘Delicia’ is a good novel nobody who has read it can have the slightest doubt.” It is good because of “the strength, the delicacy, and the freshness of the character-drawing, and . . . the interest of the story. . . .  The Stevens family . . . is really a triumph in its way.  It has all the truth to English domestic life. . . . We have not read so good a novel as ‘Delicia’ this year.” Examiner, July 19, 1879

“Without aspiring to the highest place, it is none the less one of the few books where there is nothing we could wish added or taken away.  This calm sufficiency and graceful tact in proportioning ambition to resources, if not exactly genius, is near akin to it.” Academy, August 30, 1879

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https://archive.org/details/deliciabyauthor00buttgoog/