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A quiet middle-aged man falls in love with a beautiful but strangely childlike young woman.

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Mary St. Leger Harrison (1852-1931) was the daughter of novelist and reformer Charles Kingsley.  Under the pseudonym Lucas Malet, she wrote some 16 novels beginning in 1882; this one, amid more commentary on the human condition than might seem altogether necessary, presents vivid characters in helpless conflict.

“In these days of hurried workmanship it is a welcome contrast to encounter a story which combines imagination, observation and finish in such a high degree.  This is no sketch, but a whole gallery of portraits which have not suffered from the author’s elaborate method, but only gained in lifelikeness”; even if “the author, especially in her moralizing moods, is too uniformly, and perhaps consciously, clever.” Athenaeum, June 6, 1885

The novel’s style has “a quiet self-confidence and reserved power”; the author is “vivid and effective in her descriptions, and telling in her portraitures”; but “there is a morbid strain running through it; one is tempted to ask whether the imagination which conceived and executed this book has not a touch of inflammation.” Literary World, July 11, 1885

“It is poignant, grievously pathetic, a fateful, disheartening book, but it is unquestionably clever. . . .  Everything in ‘Colonel Enderby’s Wife’ is clever--the talk, the author’s pessimistic reflections, the arrangement of incident . . . and above all the delineation of character.”  Westminster Review, October, 1885

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http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph014443744

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Today we have the suffix with “buck,” and the detective-movie dog, and the ambient-music innovator.  I wanted to “give a shout out,” as the youngsters say, to the sandwich cookie, and the killer whale, and Yoko ___, but what with all the theme answers, I couldn’t find room.  Maybe next week!

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027-I-Drops.puz

027-I-Drops.pdf

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027 I Drops

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A virtuous young lady falls in love with the companion of her childhood, her guardian’s nephew.

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Marian James wrote five novels and a few stories between 1854 and 1872; I can discover nothing else about her.  This one-volume novel, with a plot involving inheritance and betrothal, is most notable, as the reviews suggest, for its characters, especially the anti-hero to which the title ironically refers.

“It is a clever, carefully written, though slight story, without much incident,—but that little is delicately and dexterously handled, and the result is an interesting and very readable book.  The interest turns on the delineation of the different characters, especially of . . . the ‘Lord of the Creation,’ who gives the title to the book” Athenaeum, September 26, 1857

The simple plot “gains a pervading charm from excellent treatment.  The story flows on with calm earnest directness, and towards the end becomes riveting in its interest; the language, every where adequate, is nowhere pretentious... Character, however, is the writer’s forte.  Every person . . . is a separate study . . . rendered with that true art which involves not only the knowledge of human nature, but the knowledge of delineating it.”  National Magazine, November, 1857

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http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_0000000452BE#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-719%2C-124%2C2880%2C2475

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Today’s puzzle is a prequel to the one published yesterday in the Los Angeles Times—that is, the theme of this puzzle is related to that of the other as cause to effect.  I built the puzzle around 29 Across, the basis for which I have since learned is not so common a phrase as I had supposed.  Google’s ngram viewer shows that the phrase reached a peak around 1820, held steady through 1910, and then began a precipitous decline.  This is a pity, for the unhappy state of mind it tersely describes is a defining feature of human experience, one given frequent attention in Victorian novels, and one I’m delighted to reconceive, through the miracle of cruciverbalism, as a comically self-conceited anthropomorphic bird.

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026-Rejection.puz

026-Rejection.pdf

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026 Rejection

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In a small town, a radical clerk is rescued from drowning by a rich young gentleman whom he resents; as it happens, the two men are connected by their parents’ secret past.

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Elizabeth Darby Eiloart (1827-1898) wrote some 18 novels for adults (and several more for children) between 1865 and 1883; she specialized in middle-class characters and concerns, which emerge sharply in this novel, despite a charmingly silly plot.

“All Mrs. Eiloart’s books are honest books, spiced with independence of thought, and sweetened with a pleasant humour.”  This novel “breathes the fresh air of the country”; “its characters are true to life.”  Academy, July 18, 1874

Eiloart's “books are original and fascinating; they contain good plots, plenty of incident, and well described and distinctive characters.”  This is “one of the best and most interesting novels of the season.”  Morning Post, August 25, 1874

“Apart from the plot . . . Mrs. Eiloart’s novel is refreshingly and unaffectedly real.  There is nothing high-flown, nothing morbid in its tone.”  It “is not only a love-story.  It is a political story.  Conservatives and Radicals, rich and poor, the old school and the new, are all faithfully represented. . . .  This is one of the most pleasing and interesting novels of the season.”  Examiner, August 29 1874

Download this week’s novel:

vol. 1 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000047580#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=4&xywh=-460%2C-181%2C3652%2C2238

vol. 2 http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000046A6A#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=4&xywh=-410%2C0%2C3265%2C200

vol. 3: http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000046A5E#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=4&xywh=-379%2C-1%2C3329%2C204

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Tomorrow is Mother’s Day—time to give your mother a thoughtful present, like a free crossword, or a Victorian novel recommendation.  My own mother endures the crosswords of my adulthood as patiently as she did the cross words of my childhood.

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025-Motherhood.puz

025-Motherhood.pdf

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025 Motherhood

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An heiress loves a poor but proud young surgeon.

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Margaret Agnes Paul, née Colvile (1829–1905) wrote a dozen novels between 1856 and 1886, of which this was the fifth.  Just one volume, like many of her works, this has a good plot drawn from ordinary life, and a few vivid characters.

“A very pleasant evening’s reading—clever, sensible, brief, lively, and refined. . . .  It is sometimes a relief to read a novel which is good enough to admire, and not powerful enough for even a pretence to immortality.” Spectator, November 9, 1861

“interesting and original . . . related in a sharp, concise manner, which renders it very pleasant reading.” Athenaeum, November 9, 1861

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http://dbooks.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/books/PDFs/600071637.pdf

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If this puzzle doesn’t make you groan, you have simply lost the ability to groan. I ought to be sorry about it, but I’m not.  Well, I’m a little sorry to have had to use an old ad slogan for 21-Across.  But that’s all.  Otherwise, I’m proud of my work!  I glory in it!  I represent the avant-avant-garde of paronomasia.  As Schoenberg was to Schubert, as Rothko was to Rembrandt, so am I to any old-fashioned punster who cares about such stodgy matters as actual homophonic similarity.

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024-Say-It-With-Flowers.puz

024-Say-It-With-Flowers.pdf

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024 Say It with Flowers

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A young novelist lives with her clerical brother, while her friend grows to love a man with a dubious past and a secret problem.

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Mary Cholmondeley (1859-1925) wrote ten novels between 1887 and 1913; according to some reviewers, this one outsold all the other novels of 1899.  Its self-satisfied clergyman is a unique creation, not to be missed.

The plot is “ingenious, original, and abounding in strong dramatic situations”; Cholmondeley “understands the art of making her characters not merely thrill us at crises, but interest us in the normal intervening spaces of their lives”; despite some blemishes, “criticism is disarmed by the freshness, the strength, and the pathos of this brilliant and exhilarating novel, by far the most exciting and original of the present season.”  Spectator, October 28, 1899

“A clever, well-told story.  The emotional feeling is not of a common sort, and the outlook on modern life and manners is touched with vivacity, with something of subtlety even.” Cholmondeley provides “close and, at times, humorous observation of character . . . produced with a light touch and an admirable absence of the descriptive manner.”  “Never aggressively witty nor epigrammatic, she yet often says a good thing in a way that makes one wonder why it has not been said before, or not in the same fresh or whimsical fashion.”  Athenaeum, November 11, 1899

The “central incident” is “improbable,” “but the insight into character, the vivid interpretation of a woman’s mind, and the happy gift of satire displayed by Miss Cholmondeley raise her book at once to a very high level.  She has a marvelous knack of portraying an unconscious fool, male or female, and one or two of her characters will live in her readers’ memories.  She has an admirable sense of style, and she knows the world of which she writes.”  Saturday Review, November 11, 1899

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https://archive.org/details/ra556450500choluoft

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If I were sure this picture would always accompany this puzzle, I wouldn’t have bothered with any other clue for 73 Across.  “Trees, clouds, cows, hill—why,” says the informed viewer, “this can only be the view at ____!”

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023-Separation-Anxiety.puz

023-Separation-Anxiety.pdf

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023 Separation Anxiety

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A servant girl hopes to exonerate her brother from suspicion of murder.

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Catherine Crowe (1790-1872) wrote a dozen works of fiction between 1841-1859, of which this is the first.  She specialized, as the Athenaeum later put it, in “marvellously dovetailed stories of incident, vicissitude, coincidence, exposure, and disentanglement” (March 13, 1852).

 “Crowded scenes and bustling actors, and a rapid succession of incidents,—whose movement is not restrained by any calculations on the part of the author as to their probability—keep up that sort of easy excitement which the confirmed novel-reader so much loves.  There is a dashing disregard of the old consecrated unities, highly favourable to the author’s go-ahead-ism, as the Americans call it:—and in their place, he has set up a quasi unity of his own.” Athenaeum, January 30, 1841

“It is marked by a quiet kind of talent, singularly free from literary affectation, and indeed all traces of the profession of letters; but the most striking feature of the book is the extraordinary number of characters introduced, with chains of complicated and related incidents, all relative to each other, and all tending, as ultimately appears, to one point.”  Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal, May 8, 1841

“We hardly know what to say of this book.  It perplexes us extremely.  It is powerful, beyond all question; but unsatisfactory.  The writer is entitled to one admission, as early as we can make it.  When we had read the first twenty pages, the book was not again laid down. . . .  It includes a large amount of nicety and truth of observation, as well as much skill and art.”  Examiner, February 28, 1841

“Mrs. Crowe possesses the rare faculty of telling a story so naturally that it is positively difficult for the reader to convince himself that is is not true. . . .  Susan Hopley is an extraordinary specimen of her genius in this respect.  From the beginning to the end the reader is impressed with the notion that it is not a fiction. . . .  There is the simplicity of a person telling truly what she has seen and heard. . . .  Hence it was that Susan Hopley has been more widely read by the public, although not so bepraised by the reviewers, than any novel of our time, with the single exception of the works of Dickens.” Critic, November 1, 1850

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https://archive.org/details/06684358.1979.emory.edu

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If you look closely, you’ll see above (and in the works of several of the more daring Victorian painters) the phenomenon described in 16 Across.

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022-Me-Time.puz

022-Me-Time.pdf

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022 Me Time

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A quiet, successful lawyer marries a beautiful woman with expensive tastes and dubious loyalties.

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Lady Harriet Anne Scott (1819-1894), née Shank, wrote nine novels between 1838 and 1862.This one, despite its silly title, is a keen, nuanced portrait of an unhappy marriage.

It is “lightly and easily told” and “replete with social meanings.”  New Monthly Magazine, February, 1848

“One of the best novels we have perused for a long while. . . . The vivid history” of the novel’s “social sphere” is “drawn with a force and truthfulness which bespeaks a mind of no common order.”  “There is a deep knowledge of human character in it, and an admirable tracing of momentous consqeunces to apparently trifling causes. . . .  Nothing can be more individual and distinct than the characters.”  Literary Gazette, March 18, 1848

“The interest of the story is larger than the title (not a good one) would intimate; and certainly it is in no small degree life-like and natural.”  Morning Post, March 31, 1848

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v.1 https://archive.org/details/henpeckedhusband01scot

v.2 https://archive.org/details/henpeckedhusband02scot

v.3 https://archive.org/details/henpeckedhusband03scot

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This puzzle is amusing only if you know the French phrases on which it’s based.  If you think you don’t, consult this helpful list of Six French Phrases Every Crossword-Solver Should Know before you start.  Memorize these phrases and use them habitually in conversation, impressing your friends with your cosmopolitanism. Then, after some months have passed, and their use has become second nature to you, attempt the crossword below.  You’ll find it’s well worth the time and effort.

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021-C’est-What?.puz

021-C’est-What?.pdf

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021 C’est What?

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A virtuous young lady endures various improbable accidents and misunderstandings.

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Alice Price (1840-1891) wrote seven novels between 1883 and 1892, of which this is the first.  Its plot is full of exciting surprises; its characters are well delineated.

“Few recent novels can boast of so excellent a plot, of such remarkably well-drawn characters, and of the variety of incidents that is to be found in Who is Sylvia?.”  Morning Post, February 1, 1883

“This novel may be read with genuine pleasure; it is agreeably written, and the interest is sustained to the close.”  Academy, February 3, 1883
 
“The story is not overcharged with incident, but it has more than enough to relieve it from monotony, and the execution is much above the average.  There are indications of quiet power in this novel which give ample promise for the future work of its author, and it is in itself an achievement with which its readers are more than likely to be content.”  Athenaeum, February 3, 1883

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http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/OXVU1:LSCOP_OX:oxfaleph014545736

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Lord Frederic Leighton, The Last Watch of Hero

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There are few areas of popular culture I know less about than superhero comic strips and the movies based on them.  In this I must be unusual, for they seem to come up frequently in crosswords, especially those in the New York Times.  “Thor” is not just a Norse god but, apparently, a superhero.  “Atom” is a diminutive superhero, “green” is superhero “ ___ Lantern”; “iron” is superhero “___ man.”   Anyway, this puzzle is my little act of protest.  It’s filled with superheroes of my own making, the sort of superheroes I’d like to read about.  22 Across, in particular, is the sort of superhero we need right now.

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020-Superheroes.puz

020-Superheroes.pdf

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020 Superheroes

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A brother and sister, staying at a seaside town with their uncle the archdeacon, are involved in various romantic conflicts.

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Sir Henry Stewart Cunningham (1832-1920), a prominent barrister and judge, found time to write six novels between 1860 and 1894.  Here, maybe he ran out of time, for, after three hundred pages of excellent social comedy, he concludes abruptly with a hundred more of badly plotted melodrama.  The beginning and middle, however, are good enough to make up for the end.

“A capital story.  Fresh, sparkling, and cheerful as a summer’s morning”; it provides “a very faithful daguerrotype of the life in an English sea-side town.”  Christian Examiner, November, 1860

“This is a natural work.  It will please all readers, whose tastes and human feelings have not been utterly obliterated by the blood-and-thunder ‘sensation’ romances of the time.”  It “has the atmosphere of truth and the vigor of sincerity, and is executed with uncommon freedom, delicacy, and skill.”  Knickerbocker, (quoting the New York Saturday Press), November, 1860

“The dialogue is unusually brilliant, natural, and easy.  The fun is quiet, subtle, and continuous; and the illustrations of hidden thoughts and the shading off of finer traits of character are at once ingenious and truthful.  But above all, it has throughout the unmistakable impress of a refined and delicate taste.  The people in it who are represented as talking in drawing-rooms talk as if they really were in drawing-rooms, and not in the gilded saloons that haunt the fancy of Bohemia.  The ladies are ladies, and the gentlemen are about as wise and foolish, as well-behaved and as ill-behaved, as gentlemen usually are.”  Saturday Review, March 1, 1862

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http://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_000000047376#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=0&xywh=-788%2C-129%2C2990%2C2565

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Easter—rebirth—fertility—rabbits—eggs—it’s spring! As an antidote, I’ve provided a crossword featuring barrenness, burglary, drunkenness, sorcery, disfigurement, and job loss.  You’re welcome.

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019-Easter-Ovoids.puz

019-Easter-Ovoids.pdf

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019 Easter Ovoids

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A young woman is perplexed by a man who seems and does not seem to court her, and by a half-sister who may be very good or very bad.

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Lady Georgiana Fullerton (1812-1885), daughter of an earl and convert to Catholicism, wrote roughly a dozen novels between 1844 and 1883.  Though the plot here is not always plausible, it enables her to place fully realized, sympathetic characters in interesting dilemmas.

“The skill with which the plot . . . is constructed, the exquisite truth of delineation which the characters exhibit, and the intensity of passion which warms and dignifies the subject, are alike admirable. . . .  The depth of passion which surrounds the story of Ginevra is the result of unquestioned genius.”  Times, August 24, 1847

“If sentimentalism is sometimes carried to a rather extravagant height, and tenderness and pathos are occasionally over-wrought, still it is impossible to deny to the work, striking and passionate scenes, exquisite and truthful delineations of English society and character, vigour and grace of language, and high intellectual power.” Ainsworth’s Magazine, July 1847

Fullerton “takes a high place among writers of modern fiction.  We have not for many a day read so charming a story. . . .  Though there is nothing violent in the nature of the interest, and weakness, not wickedness, induces the suffering, the suffering is deep enough for profoundest sympathy, and the feelings are moved and agitated to the last.  And neighbouring the pathos...we have occasional archness, simplicity, and quiet humour, the effect of which is most graceful and lovely.” Examiner, July 3, 1847

Download this week’s novel:

v.1  https://archive.org/details/grantleymanortal01full

v.2  https://archive.org/details/grantleymanortal02full

v.3  https://archive.org/details/grantleymanortal03full

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As every child knows, there were nine Muses:  Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania.  Erato is a crossword favorite, on account of her attractive vowels.  However, Wikipedia informs us that there were originally only three Muses, representing Practice, Memory,  and Song—and I have constructed this crossword with the purpose of giving some long-overdue attention to this neglected trio, especially its second member, featured in 54 Down, which is where I began work.  I really wanted to fit in the other two—Melete and Aoide—but my theme got in the way.

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018-Spatial-Relations.puz

018-Spatial-Relations.pdf

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018 Spatial Relations