Another fine offering from Myrtilus, with a pretty consistent theme of travelling or just being on holiday. It took me 38.26, and while there is one reference I can’t pin down, there was nothing to detract from enjoyment. Only one clue, 2d, doesn’t offer you a cryptic way into the answer and ends up being an “either you know it or you don’t” sort of clue (maybe 20a too), but a lot more of the clues are so elegantly written that they look as if they haven’t got a cryptic dimension. I think I can safely say on the basis of this puzzle that if there ever was “no living artist” policy, it’s been dumped.
Clues Definitions SOLUTIONS – here’s my working and back up research.
Across
1 Shakespeare’s tucked up in Lincoln then back to Stratford (4)
“And gentlemen in England now ABED
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here” Henry V
ABE Lincoln plus the back end of StratforD
4 Book loud chalet? Not exactly (5,2,3)
HOTEL DU LAC A generous anagram (“not exactly”) which should prevent you from putting DE in the middle. Anita Brookner’s Booker-winning novel of mid life crisis resolution.
9 The end of a voyage on board with a castaway (6)
ITHACA Odysseus’ home town and end of his odyssey. It really is on board wITH A CAstaway.
10 He collected Travelling Songs from a jolly time touring Italy (8)
Simon ARMITAGE (not yet on the cart) had a collection of poems called Travelling Songs published in 2002. The wordplay? Assemble A R(oyal) M(arine), otherwise known as a jolly, and AGE/time around IT(aly)
11 Crouse and Lindsay’s book has sun, food, travelling and tunes (5,2,5)
SOUND OF MUSIC C and L take the blame/credit for the book of the musical/film. Anagram of SUN, FOOD, then MUSIC standing in for tunes. Whether the clue is an elegant enough synopsis of the von Trapp experience I leave as decision for you.
13 Like Princess Ann’s holiday and short city breaks? (8)
ROMANTIC. Princess Ann (no E) was played by the delicious Audrey Hepburn in ROMAN Holiday, and a short city broken gives the TIC. Both occurrences could be romantic – the first certainly is because it also involved Gregory Peck, so a rather decent &lit.
15 Will some holiday-makers sleep here? (6)
INTENT Christmas cracker-ish pun. Audrey Hepburn slept on a park bench , in Gregory Peck’s apartment and at the embassy, but not IN TENT
16 A visitor to Brinkley Court put up with missing a connection (6)
BERTIE Brinkley Court is the home of Bertie Wooster’s Aunt Dahlia and the scene of several of Jeeves’ fix-its. Put up with BEAR, scrap the A, add TIE connection.
18 The holiday destination where one swaps places with a performer (8)
THESPIAN Don’t discard the THE. The holiday destination you’re looking for is Spain, swap the I and the A
20 The state of the Berrys’ hotel (3,9)
NEW HAMPSHIRE The Berry family are the stars of John Irving’s fifth novel, The Hotel New Hampshire. John Irving is Not Dead Yet and lives in Vermont.
23 Cruise for one who finally left after short midlife crisis (4,4)
FILM IDOL Somebody out there must like the midget Scientologist, I suppose. The word play demands attention to detail. Who finally is O, left gives L. Short midlife gives MIDLIF, crisis suggests mucking about with the letters, placing them before the other two.
24 A sick person who made the long voyage home (6)
O’NEILL The Long Voyage Home is an early play by Eugene O’Neill, and a sick person is ONE ILL. Times crossword enumeration routinely ignores apostrophes, lest we solvers gain an unfair advantage.
25 Passionate intros to every Lonely Planet book (5,5)
HOTEL WORLD Is a book written by Ali Smith. The wordplay? Passionate: HOT, introductions to Every Lonely: EL, Planet: WORLD. Ali Smith is Not Dead Yet, lives in Cambridge and writes for The Times Literary Supplement. Now there’s a coincidence.
26 Ethan and Mattie’s vehicle gave the wrong indication leaving a motorway (4)
SLED Ethan Frome is a novel by Edith Wharton, and Mattie is Ethan’s love interest. The sled (not named Rosebud this time) plays a pivotal role in the “deliberate accident” that injures both. Think “gave the wrong information”: MISLED, and remove the M1 “motorway”, if only you could.
Down
2 Mary Crane’s final resting place (5,5)
BATES MOTEL Mary Crane is the character murdered by Norman Bates in the role of Mother in Psycho (novel, Robert Bloch, film Alfred Hitchcock, soundtrack ee ee ee ee). Arguably, Mary’s final resting place is wherever they buried her after dragging the car out of the swamp, but the last place she stayed in was the room at the Motel, the one with the hole in the wall. No other noticeable wordplay.
3 A voyager from Varna, a copper, left a medic up top (7)
DRACULA Destination Whitby. Follow the instructions. A:A, copper CU left:L, a:A medic:DR, which must be placed on top of the rest.
4 Rider trading a horse for old treasure (5)
HOARD Rider should make you think Haggard, then substitute O(ld) for A GG, a horse in kidspeak. Clever stuff.
5 Vehicles they toured with far from home (7)
TRAFFIC …and here they are doing exactly that. Catch Steve Winwood live (Not Dead Yet, then) tomorrow night at Bethel Woods Center For The Arts, Bethel, NY
6 Story about America penned by a novelist in a vehicle (9)
LIMOUSINE This one’s stumped me. The structure of the wordplay suggests a matrioshka clue, “America” inside “a novelist” inside “story”. America has to be US, story can be LIE or LINE. Which leaves us with MOI or MOIN for the novelist. I can give you Haseena Moin, Pakistani playwright of considerable fame, but “Moin didn’t branch out into other literary forms like novels or short stories” (Wiki). I can give you Toril Moi, Professor of Literature and author of works on Ibsen and Simone de Beauvoir, and Daniel Arap Moi, sometime President of Kenya. I can also give (late entry) you Chinese novelist Mo Yan, the family name being MO, with the IN provided by the clue. Or is Myrtilus a closet writer: le novelist, c’est moi?
7 Straighten out books on whiskey, visiting Scottish islands (7)
UNTWIST Whiskey in its NATO role giving W, tacked on to NT for the younger bit of the Bible, both contained in UIST which is/are a group of islands in the Outer Hebrides
8 A journey by river vessel (4)
ARGO Jason’s barque, pieced together from A, then GO “journey” appended to R(iver)
12 A pretty girl in a Brontë who lived in a kingdom by the sea (7,3)
ANNABEL LEE Edgar Allan Poe’s slightly unnerving poem of young love.
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
Take ANNE of the Brontës, and introduce BELLE, a non-specific pretty girl
14 Most of these had early parts for Orson Welles as a roving vigilante (3,6)
THE SHADOW Debuted in 1930 as, well, yes, a roving vigilante. The wordplay: most of these THE S, had: HAD, early parts of Orson Welles. One of the reasons I like Myrtilus is the attention to detail. Orson voiced the radio Shadow in 1937-8, one of his earlier performances. It all fits.
17 An article about Bombeck’s spa facilities (7)
THERMAE Hot springs built here from an article, THE, with ERMA Bombeck, American humorist, imported.
18 The saint seen in almost all church paintings (7)
TEMPLAR Simon in the 60’s series, as played by Roger Moore’s eyebrow.. The “almost all” applies both to Church and paintings, so TEMPLe ARt
19 A ship at sea carrying the French circumnavigator (7)
PHILEAS An anagram of A SHIP plus an inserted LE (French the, but you knew that) for the 80-day circumnavigator Fogg
21 Unferth gave Beowulf one choice between Cornwall generally and Land’s End (5)
SWORD It was called Hrunting. Like the wordplay. If you are given a choice between Cornwall generally and Land’s End, its South West OR lanD
22 A voyager from Tyre sat back? (4)
DIDO Another from a Christmas cracker: sat back/DID nOthing. Dido as in and Aeneas. Dido was the legendary founder and Queen of Carthage, but she was born (if not a god to begin with) in Tyre.
Dereklam
Derek, we need to have US penned by MO IN to make the wordplay work, but thanks! Give my regards to Timothy!
Item: I’ve read the Brookner book more than once and very much enjoyed the screen adaptation (good cast), but the anagram blew past me and I was footling about with House of Wax for far too long.
Item: Missed the apostrophe in O’Neill ( really should know by now) and threw in Otello in desperation.
Item: Didn’t know Mo and didn’t parse the clue.
Yes, we definitely get living persons in the TLS. Christopher Plummer called the S of M the Sound of Mucus.
Lamont Cranston aka The Shadow. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men. The Shadow knows.” My in-laws had an LP of the radio show. Good clue.
Thanks to Zed for an expert blog and to Peter for raising the standard of the TLS puzzle.