TLS Crossword 1140 by Talos – September 2, 2016: Paris, Texas

I’ll let the answers below speak for themselves, as I’ve another crossword to blog this morning, but will pause to point out that once again this week Shakespeare dominated the pitch, with a final scoreline of 5-2 against Dickens by my reckoning. Can the Bard ever be beaten?

Across

1 Parchment covering books in honour of Doctorow? (5)
FOREL – FOR [in honour of] E.L.
Edgar Lawrence “E.L.” Doctorow, recently deceased American novelist

4 Self-penned work takes off after August (5,4)
GREAT APES – APES [takes off] after GREAT [august]
Self-penned as in “penned by Will Self”

9 Merchant Ivory’s debut features new director (9)
ANTONIONI – ANTONIO [(the) Merchant (of Venice)] + I{vory} features N
Michelangelo Antonioni, Italian film director

10 Modest Romeo hiding poetic inspiration (5)
ESTRO – {mod}EST RO{meo}

11 Hard to get into unusually merry McGonagall? (6)
RHYMER – H to get into (MERRY*)
William Topaz McGonagall, 1827-1902, purveyor of terrible doggerel

12 Hearts, perhaps, in a Shakespearean courtship (4-4)
LOVE-SUIT – Hearts being both a suit (of cards), and much associated with love
Found in Cymbeline, Henry V and Sonnets according to the concordance

14 Crime writer having a go in bombed Slough (5,5)
NGAIO MARSH – (A GO IN*) + MARSH [slough]

16 Border crossing husband goes over in Pullman briefly? (4)
PHIL – LIP [border] “crossing” H, reversed
Philip Pullman, author of His Dark Materials and so forth

19 Madame Bovary’s contrary soul enthralling a French gentleman (4)
EMMA – reverse of AME [Madame Bovary’s, i.e. French, “soul”] “enthralling” M (for Monsieur)
Emma Bovary, Flaubert’s adulterous and certainly contrary heroine

20 McBain twist: jumper died a victim of strangulation (5,5)
EDWIN DROOD – ED + WIND ROO D [twist | jumper | died]
Ed McBain, 1902-2005, prolific crime writer. Edwin Drood was strangled, but by whom? It’s a mystery.

22 Agent backing revolutionary ultra writer against the Ancients? (8)
PERRAULT – REP [agent] reversed + (ULTRA*)
Charles Perrault, fairy tale maestro who “was the leader of the Modern faction during the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns”

23 One caught by warm gust, wings failing (6)
ICARUS – I C [one | caught] by {w}AR{m} {g}US{t}, &lit
About suffering they were never wrong, the old Setters…

26 A problem this Scottish cop has when writing his name? (5)
REBUS – Rebus is Ian Rankin’s Scottish cop protagonist, and a rebus is a puzzle-problem of words suggesting pictures

27 “— are a slavish herd and fools in my opinion” (Jean de la Fontaine) (9)
IMITATORS

28 “A sad soul can kill you quicker, far quicker, than a germ” (John —) (9)
STEINBECK

29 Western writer Eastern journos deny embracing (5)
EDSON – hidden, in an east-to-west direction, in {jour}NOS DE{ny}
J.T. Edson, 1928-2014, prolific author of Westerns whom Wikipedia informs me had a catfight fetish

Down

1 “She has all the — and freedom of a flower” (Wilde’s character description of Lady Chiltern) (9)
FRAGRANCE

2 Could he become thus when badgered? (5)
RATTY – cryptic def: badgering someone can certainly leave them ratty, but more importantly Badger and Ratty are both characters in Grahame’s Wind in the Willows

3 Tabler announcing what a boil specialist might do? (8)
LANCELOT – homophone of LANCE A LOT
Tabler as in “Knight of the Round Table”

4 Orwellian leader in power play with a German professor (4)
GOOD – O{rwellian} in GOD [power]
An award winning play in two acts by Cecil Philip Taylor about a liberal German professor seduced into Nazism

5 Post men on The Pequod, perhaps after rising tide (10)
EDITORSHIP – O.R. [men] on SHIP [the Pequod, perhaps] after reverse of TIDE
The Pequod being the whaling ship in Melville’s Moby Dick

6 Banville’s Booker winner’s half the title Murdoch’s was (3,3)
THE SEA – 50% of Iris Murdoch’s “The Sea, The Sea”, which also won the Booker.
Surely someone must be tempted to write “The Sea, The Sea, The Sea” just to see what happens

7 Favourite game with companion, a naked lion tamer (9)
PETRUCHIO – PET R.U. [favourite | game] with CH [companion] + {l}IO{n}
The tamer in The Taming of the Shrew, and indeed The Tamer Tam’d

8 Finch family member close to indigo in tail (5)
SCOUT – {indig}O in SCUT [tail]
Scout Finch, daughter of Atticus in To Kill A Mockingbird

13 Poet stashing gold key in LA suburb, then drug (10)
BAUDELAIRE – AU D [gold | key] “stashed” in BEL AIR [LA suburb], then E [drug]
Surely the second greatest of all French poets

15 As was Crichton, Breaking Bad and Mailer (9)
ADMIRABLE – (BAD + MAILER*)
The Admirable Crichton, J.M. Barrie’s 1902 stage comedy

17 Unscrupulous beauty Miss America to open hospital (4,5)
LADY SUSAN – LADY [miss] + US [America] “to open” SAN [hospital]
From the epistolary Jane Austen novel of the same name

18 Lover of Carstone, a real cad in a bad way (3,5)
ADA CLARE – (A REAL CAD*)
Ada Clare and Richard Carstone are romantically entwined wards of John Jarndyce in Bleak House

21 Doctor Who’s content kept from TV guide? (6)
WATSON – {w}H{o} “kept from” WHAT’S ON
Dr John Watson, faithful sidekick of Sherlock Holmes

22 Romantic city gent not making a bride joyful? (5)
PARIS – double def
“Now, by Saint Peter’s Church and Peter too,
He [Count Paris] shall not make me there a joyful bride.” – R&J

24 Genealogical book that a Rolling Stone can’t put down? (5)
ROOTS – If a rolling stone gathers no moss, it can scarcely put down roots…
Alex Haley’s 1976 novel, well known for its TV adaptation

25 Gently does it at first with a vacuous remark (4)
DIRK – D{oes} I{t} + R{emar}K
Douglas Adams’s Dirk Gently, of Holistic Detective Agency fame