My heart sank a bit when I saw I’d drawn a Broteas in the blogging rotation – my last two outings on his puzzles were lacklustre at best. So it was a very pleasant surprise to find that (with a couple of exceptions) this one flowed quite smoothly. I suspect that’s because it was a lot easier than the last two. I did it in parts and can’t give a time. Definitions (where appropriate) in italics underlined. Answers in bold caps.
Across
Can Jack (alto) and soprano meet a Cloisterham Cathedral schoolmaster? (4,6)
JOHN JASPER. JOHN=can (w.c.) with J=Jack, A=alto, s=soprano and PER=a (as in two “a” penny). The second A is sneaky device that often catches me out as it passes under the radar. Jasper is the opium-addicted evil uncle and probable murderer of the title character in Charles Dickens’s unfinished Mystery of Edwin Drood.
6. Medical trouble for Penny and Roger leaving a Bohemian city (4)
AGUE. Remove P[enny] and R[oger] from Prague, the Bohemian city.
10. Novel with no following left unread in film about Brits in Tuscany (9)
UNRELATED. Anagram (novel) of LEFT UNREAD removing the F=following. 2007 movie (that I missed altogether) featuring the currently smoking hot Tom Hiddleston.
11. Dashing Otto’s Florence’s admirer (5)
TOOTS. Anagram (dashing) of OTTO’S. In Dickens’s Dombey and Son, Florence Dombey is admired by Mr. P. Toots.
12. Novel opening in a London prison (7)
NEWGATE. NEW=novel. GATE=opening. Infamous prison over the centuries, now the site of the Old Bailey.
13. Lady ready to meet DH Lawrence’s gamekeeper (7)
ANNABLE. ANN=lady. ABLE=ready. In The White Peacock, Lawrence’s first novel, this was the name of the gamekeeper. I’d no recollection of the name despite having read the book at least once. – evidently the prototype for Oliver Mellors, the one we all do remember in Lady Chatterley.
14. Old Greek story about the true identity of an orphan (4,6)
LORD GREYSTOKE. Masterly anagram (about) of OLD GREEK STORY. The orphan being Tarzan from the adventure stories by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Innumerable adaptations and a 1980s movie with Ralph Richardson in his final role.
17. Hollywood’s wealthy cobbler ? (3,4,6)
THE LAST TYCOON. Another unfinished novel – this one by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A “last” is a form used by a cobbler. The parsing of this had me baffled for longer than I care to say, which makes it a very neat one in my book.
21. One’s often seen with Bond before one’s captured by old lady? (7)
PREMIUM. PRE=before. 1-one, contained in (captured by) MUM=old lady. UK lottery dating from the 50s with the monthly drawing made by ERNIE (electronic random number indicator equipment).
22. English in India, or roaming Zingare? (7)
ANGREZI. Anagram (roaming) of ZINGARE. What Indians call the English. Apparently the derivation is Portuguese rather than Hindi. I knew this from the Raj Quartet but was glad Broteas gave us the vowels as checking letters because I’d forgotten the order.
24. Latin extract comes first, in a manner of speaking (5)
DRAWL. DRAW=extract, followed by L=Latin.
25. God followed by all of America? Buchan wrote about seeing his “living image” (4,5)
LORD ALLOA. LORD=God, with ALL O (of) A[merica]. From John Buchan’s 1915 thrilller The Thirty-Nine Steps. Memorably adapted for the screen by Alfred Hitchcock. First Sea Lord Alloa is the traitor, recognised by Richard Hannay.
26. Classic publisher that’s found in Rugby (4)
RIEU. I.E=that’s in RU=Rugby. Emile. Among other notable accomplishments he was the editor of the Penguin Classics, the first one of which was his translation of the Odyssey in 1946. Twenty years later I used it as a crib in my schooldays.
27. Joseph’s girl that’s often seen with Herb – she’s the one who doesn’t get married (4,6)
MARY BENNETT. Mary, wife of Joseph, mother of Jesus. Herb bennett, aka wood avens. The boring studious one of the Bennett girls in Pride and Prejudice. We don’t actually know from Austen if Kitty Bennett marries either. In P.D. James’s sequel Pemberley, Mary is married to a parson.
Down
1 Diaries, or books for those who keep them? (8)
JOURNALS. Deceptively simple double definition. The slim volumes that contain the entries.
2. Ambassador’s honour and muscle given to a King – English one opposing Normans (8,3,4)
HEREWARD THE WAKE. HE=ambassador. REWARD=honour. THEW=muscle. K=King. E-English. 11th Century leader of anti-Norman resistance.
3. One playing Sebastian or Sebastian’s sister (5)
JULIA. The one “playing Sebastian” is Julia in Two Gentlemen of Verona. She disguises herself so as to follow her lover Proteus to Milan where she discovers that he is cheating on her. When I first started coming to NYC eons ago, before moving here altogether, I saw the musical version in Central Park which included a splendid song by Julia which went – If I were a young man I wouldn’t be pregnant…. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgjOvRj5-eI&index=13&list=PLUSRfoOcUe4YyOYxSvdZCWkZJ6QRTkHbK (There was also the wonderful actor Raul Julia who originated the role of Proteus).
The other Julia is Flyte, in Evelyn’s Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, whose brother Sebastian was a romantic interest of the narrator Charles Ryder in their Oxford days. Charles falls in love with Julia years later.
4. Statement of defiance showing anger about article (2,5)
SO THERE. SORE=showing anger, surrounding (about) THE=article.
5. “And blessings on the falling out / That all the more – ” (Tennyson, “The Princess”) (7)
ENDEARS. Narrative poem from the 1840s. Probably better known now as the basis for Princess Ida by G&S.
7. Isherwood’s version of Brexit? (7,2,6)
GOODBYE TO BERLIN. 1930s novel by Christopher set in the Weimar era. Now best known for its adaptation as Cabaret onstage and in film.
8. Rain is my subject – Lake Erie’s in a storm (6)
EISLER. Anagram (in a storm) of L[AKE] ERIE’S. Contemporary American novelist Barry. John Rain is the protagonist of one of his thriller series.
9. Two gentlemen, one famously tempted (2,6)
ST. ANTONY. Stan and Tony are the two gentlemen (not of Verona). Third Century monk who was visited by various temptations while on a desert pilgrimage and resisted them by prayer. His story has lent itself to much, often surreal, artistic representation.
15. Fanny who asked no kind return of love (8)
.GREVILLE. Aristocratic 18th Century poet. Her poem, Prayer for Indifference, is number 489 in the Quiller-Couch Oxford Book of English verse. Barbara Pym used a similar line as the title for one of her novels.
16. Barchester pessimist opposing hypocrisy (8)
ANTICANT. From Anthony Trollope’s The Warden, et seq. When re-reading I usually skip these parts. Dr. P. Anticant, whose name speaks for itself, is thought to represent Thomas Carlyle, essayist, philosopher, pamphleteer. His antagonist was Mr. Popular Sentiment (Charles Dickens). The names seem crude and unimaginative (as compared with Dickens’s) although Trollope’s take on them is shrewd and satirical. He does the same with some of his doctors such as Fillgrave and Sir Omicron Pie.
18. A religious leader in Ephesus, who arrived there from a port in Albania (7)
AEMILIA. From A Comedy of Errors. Abbess of Ephesus who lost her husband Egeon, merchant of Syracuse, and twin sons in a shipwreck. Epidamnum, in Albania, is where the sons were born before the family got separated.
19. What a bat resembles, being made of wood? (3,4)
TEA TRAY. From the Mad Hatter in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.
Twinkle twinkle little bat
How I wonder what you’re at
Up above the world you fly
Like a tea tray in the sky.
This confused me just a little because tea trays also come in tole, papier mache, plastic etc.
20. Name for a dodgy Bentley or an Alfa Romeo? (6)
SPIDER. And this is the one I really don’t get (or idgy bidgy – I get but I don’t get – which was once proposed as a term of art on this site). What I know about perfomance cars could be varnished onto my little toenail but I had, just, heard of that model of Alfa. But who or what is the Bentley and why is it dodgy? I’ve clearly been asking Google all the wrong questions. See Dereklam infra.
23. “Glory, the – , love, gold, in these are sunk / The hopes of all men” (Byron, Don Juan) (5)
GRAPE. Byron extolling the joys of drinking.
Dereklam
Broteas does like his Dickens, I think.
I had a very low hit-rate on the required reading for this one — the Lawrence, the Fitzgerald, the Austen, the Buchan … I think that’s it.
Loved the Last Tycoon pun. Like you, Olivia, I was very slow on the uptake.
The Lord Greystoke anagram was a classic case of “Oh dear, why did I choose this answer?” until the scrabble tiles were shuffled the right way.
In 1D, you were supposed to notice that journals are also books used by book-keepers, but my test solver seems to be right in predicting that most people wouldn’t.
Edited at 2016-08-12 09:57 am (UTC)
Of course, had you just said “Yes, and I hope to make the works of Dickens my specialist subject in a future series of Mastermind”, we would all have believed you!
Not a huge fan of musicals, but if they were all as good as Cabaret, I certainly would be. Joel Gray unforgettable.
Much of the TLS is accessible these days to relatively ordinary crossword skills, allied occasionally to post solve looking up the to confirm the informed guesses you’ve made. I would encourage you to have a go – they have become much more fun to solve, and some recent ones have been elegant and sophisticated tours de force.