Guardian 24230/Brendan - literally challenged
Posted by linxit on November 9th, 2007
I thought I’d made a mistake and printed out the TLS Crossword instead today! At least there were no unfinished quotations, and actually the only answer I wasn’t familiar with was 5dn. Amazing that every single answer belongs to the theme, without anything really obscure required.
Across
7 HI,A(WATH=what*)A - I was thinking Asian Indian until I got the W. Duh!
9 ALLEY,N - this is Edward Alleyn, 16th century actor.
10 GLYN - aptly hidden in “darinGLY Naughty”, Elinor Glyn invented the dreaded crossword cliché “It” = sex appeal.
11 KE(NIL)WORTH - (The work)* around NIL - nice &lit, as Kenilworth is a romantic novel.
12 P(o)INTER
14 L(ANGL(e))AND - William Langland, 14th century poet.
15 GATS,BY - stag rev.
17 B,R,ECHT - echt is German for authentic, Bertolt Brecht is the &lit- defined German playwright.
20 RABELAIS (base liar)*
22 STEELE - “steel” - Richard Steele, co-founder of The Spectator.
23 O(SCARWIL)DE - SCARWIL being (scrawl I)*
24 AMIS(s)
26 SA(LIN=nil rev)GER - JD Salinger, author of the brilliant Catcher in the Rye.
Down
1 FIELDING - cricket reference, and Henry Fielding, satirical novelist.
2 O(W)EN - W(ar) inside one* - Wilfred Owen, the WW1 poet.
3 STOKER - two meanings again - Bram Stoker, author of Dracula.
4 FAULKNER - (K Lear fun)*
5 ALTO(N) LOCKE - I guessed this from the wordplay and crossing letters in the end. Last one I put in. It’s a novel by Charles Kingsley.
6 LY(TT)ON - only* around TT (teetotaller). Lord Lytton, famous (among other things) for really starting a novel with “It was a dark and stormy night…”
8 ARNOLD (Landor*) - I assume this is Matthew Arnold.
13 TITLE,PAGES
16 B,RAN,WELL - Branwell was the less well-known brother of the Bronte sisters.
18 TULLIVER - Gulliver “initially altered”. Maggie Tulliver is the main character in George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss.
21 AUSTEN - “Austin”, state capital of Texas.
22 S(TELL)A - “Stella“, real name Esther Johnson, was a friend of Jonathan Swift’s.
24,25A ANNA SEWELL - just a cryptic definition referring to Black Beauty, I think.
November 9th, 2007 at 6:54 pm
Thanks for that - I got it all except FIELDING, but that included some answers which I’d have been hard put to flesh out with literary/ biographical explanation. Another impressive work of thematic construction from Brendan.
November 10th, 2007 at 4:20 am
Remarkable construction, indeed, but: “without anything really obscure”?
GLYN, KENILWORTH, LANGLAND, STEELE, ALTON LOCKE, BRANWELL, TULLIVER and STELLA were all brand new to me. (Well, I are an enjinear, after all, and don’t come across too many 14th century English poets…)
To be fair, I got a handle on some of these from the wordplay and crossing letters, and some from a google on e.g. bronte and scott (the definition being a bit obvious…), so was able to find them all online: maybe that’s what you mean by not being “really obscure”. But without a browser I’d have been completely stuck.
Still, I’ve ended up better informed, but no etc etc
November 11th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
A fantastic puzzle this. Even by Brendan’s standards, to manage to make every single entry (from an admittedly broad field) thematic was stupendous.