TLS 821 (19th Feb)

Author   linxitPosted on Categories Daily Cryptic
Solving time about 45 minutes, although as usual I had to cheat to finish it. If I were to classify the solutions I’d identify three types: (K) knew the answer – this would include straight cryptic clues; (G) educated guess – including those worked out from crossing letters; and (L) had to look it up, mostly on Google and Wikipedia, although the Chambers Dictionary of Literary Characters and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations also come in handy. Of course, some of the guesses came with the help of crossing letters from look-ups, so it’s only a rough guide to difficulty.

K: 8
G: 16
L: 6

Across
1 PENELOPE’S WEB – In Greek mythology, Penelope was the wife of Ulysses, who was away for years. To discourage other suitors she refused to entertain them until she finished making this shroud, which she worked on by day but unpicked every night. Also the name of a play by 28ac.
9 THE CRITIC – quotation.
10 ERICA – ERIC + A. I don’t get the “proceeding by degrees” bit. The name means “sole ruler”, so I assume it’s a literary reference.
11 OBERON – in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Titania refuses to hand over her Indian page-boy to Oberon for use as his knight.
12 FLETCHER – John Fletcher, a contemporary of Shakespeare. The clue also references a line from Hamlet.
13 ESTATE – Edwin Muir published The Estate of Poetry in 1962.
15 ANCHISES – more Greek mythology. The father of Aeneas, crippled by Zeus for boasting of his fling with Aphrodite, and carried from the ruins of Troy on his son’s shoulders.
18 MARIVAUX – Pierre de Marivaux, French dramatist. Le Legs is the unlikely title of his 1736 play.
19 OWNERS – 1972 play by Caryl Churchill (no relation to Winston).
21 IDENTITY – Cards of Identity, a 1955 novel by Nigel Dennis.
23 ESTHER – a pure guess. All I know is that it’s a girl’s name that fits.
26 EVENS – EVE + N,S
27 BEN JONSON – wrote Every Man In His Humour and Every Man Out of His Humour. The inscription on his grave in Westminster Abbey says “O Rare Ben Johnson” (sic). Last one in due to the wrong enumeration (9) instead of (6,3).
28 ROBERT GREENE – writer of Greene’s Groat’s-worth of Wit, wherein Shakespeare is described as a young upstart actor.

Down
1 PATMORE – PAT MORE. Coventry Patmore, English poet. Never heard of him, I’m afraid – and I live in Coventry!
2 NIECE – Betsy Trotwood was David Copperfield’s great-aunt in the Dickens novel, although when he was born she was upset that he wasn’t a girl.
3 LERMONTOV – quotation from Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov. The two poems in question are The Mermaid and The Princess of the Tide.
4 PITY – put in as a guess from checking letters, but Googling again today I found evidence that there might be a typo in the clue. Pity Is Not Enough is a novel by Josephine Herbst (not Herbert).
5 SUCKLING – Sir John Suckling, an English Cavalier poet.
6 EVENT – Events and Wisdoms: Poems 1957-63 is a collection by Donald Davie.
7 RICHESSE – quotation.
8 HARRIS – double definition. The folklorist is Joel Chandler Harris, famous for Brer Rabbit.
14 TURGENEV – hidden in “persistenT URGE, NEVer quite followed”. Ivan Turgenev, Russian novelist. As is common in TLS hidden word clues, the phrase doing the hiding runs on for a few unnecessary words.
16 HAWKSMOOR – HAWKS MOOR. Nicholas Hawksmoor, English architect and pupil of Sir Christopher Wren. I had to look him up, although when I did I realized that I’d heard of him and should have got him from the wordplay. Should have left it for a day, as he also appeared in that week’s Jumbo.
17 QUOTABLE – “sighted” sounds like “cited”, hence quotable. Confusingly the clue then goes on to describe something that might be “sighted”.
18 MAILER – double definition. Norman Mailer is the American writer.
20 STRANGE – The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris by Leon Garfield.
22 TASSO – TASS (the Russian news agency) might be “given to concealing”, + O (love). The wordplay is guesswork here, but I can’t think what else it might be. Torquato Tasso was a 16th C. Italian poet.
24 HESSE – hidden in “unusual clotHES SEen”.
25 KNOT – another name for the sandpiper, and Knots, a work by the Scottish psychiatrist.

3 comments on “TLS 821 (19th Feb)”

  1. I gave up after 30 minutes with 9 clues still unsolved, and discovered later that I had one wrong – but this was another case where I should have had a clean sheet as there was nothing I didn’t know or couldn’t have guessed. Most annoying was PENELOPE’S WEB, which should have been an obvious guess, but which I missed by stupidly assuming that the first word was going to end in LESS (or OUS), despite noting in passing that CHARLOTTE’S WEB would almost fit. Once I’d looked the answer up, that gave me NIECE (I was foxed by the word “great”, having failed to realise that Betsey (sic) Trotwood was David Copperfield’s great-aunt rather than just his aunt), OBERON (how on earth did I miss that?), LERMONTOV (ditto!), THE CRITIC and PITY in quick succession.

    My mistake was guessing GREETING instead of IDENTITY for 21A, but once I’d looked that up I got MAILER (which I hadn’t realised could mean an advertisement) immediately and then MARIVAUX (quickly but somewhat tentatively) and finally (rather less quickly) QUOTABLE – which I was particularly annoyed to miss as it should have been obvious and would almost certainly have given me IDENTITY and that whole block of answers.

    ERIC in 10A refers to Dean Farrar’s Eric, or Little by Little (1858), a book which I’ve never read (it sounds almost unbelievably dreary) but which used to crop up regularly in the daily cryptic.

    I’d never heard of Le Legs in 18A, but discovered on looking the word up in my French dictionary that it means “The Legacy”.

    ESTHER in 23A is the eponymous heroine of George Moore’s Esther Waters (1894); and we have “taking the waters” at Bath.

    I agree with you that “Herbert” in 4D must surely be “Herbst”, though I’m not familiar with either her or her novel.

    I also agree that 22D must surely be TASSO, but can’t justify it (I thought of the Russian news agency as well, but I don’t find it very convincing).

  2. I’ve just remembered that I did actually come up with an explanation of 22D: TASSO = ASS in TO (ASS = sexual intercourse = “love”).
  3. Far better experience for me than the last two. After a couple of lengthy sessions I was left with seven unsolved before turning to Google.

    Nothing much that I can add to you explanations, fellas. The error on the BEN JONSON clue did for me, as did IDENTITY and TASSO (thanks for the arresting explanation, Tony). The HERBERT/HERBST thing smacks less of typo and more of “helpful” correction by subeditor.

    I’m curious to know who compiles these puzzles, and how much they resort to the reference works in putting the grids together. Or perhaps they’re just spectacularly well-read individuals. I’m afraid these days I read maybe one more serious work for every four or five pop fiction books (I have the standard feminine prediliction for murder yarns, a tad grisly by preference). I’ve just switched from Emily Bronte (I managed to get into my forties without reading Wuthering Heights but I finally surrendered) to Robert B Parker, which about sums up the pattern of my reading.

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