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"Not enchanted by the break with convention in so many of the clues where half of the abbreviation (eg N in Nova Scotia) becomes the extra letter."

I'm not sure whether it represents a break with convention since extra letters generated from two-letter abbreviations are not uncommon in the Listener, but I agree with Caphrist's objection, and I think it's poor practice. A similar thing I dislike that's found here is an extra letter generated by a short word that is already shortened by the clue, leaving only half of the original word in the answer, eg, 6a, 16a, 42a. It doesn't break any rules, but it seems an inelegant way of making clues difficult.

I have slogged away and got it all done, I think, though am guessing that 1d is to be entered as the name and 6ac as voracious to avoid a book. However, cannot quite sort out the end of the letters from the downs and have run out of steam. Do I have to shade some sort of job?

Aha. Got it. Would still like to know whether 1d is his name

ie do we enter name or enchanted one?

I guess author and title are essential.

I agree, Rickye, author and title are probably required for the puzzle to be assessed as correct. Though to my mind, and according to the theme, neither could ever be considered as vital...

I am suddenly confused. i have solved all the clues except 14 across. Previous posts have suggested that the extra letter is the N of Nova Scotia, but it seems to me as though the extra letter must be Y. Anyway I can't solve the clue, which doesn't help! I figured that 6 ac must be the book as it is essential, having been written by the author at 1 down and it counteracts the non-essential at 22 across.Otherwise where is the other "essential"? Finally I can't find in the grid anything that corresponds to the last 3 letters of the instruction.

Escuan, the extra letter from 14 is Y. I think the clue works by having NS split apart GRAY, being the N. Am. version of grey. The solver needs to assume that the splitting apart has actually taken place, and that NS wasn't merely concatenated onto GRAY.

On 'essential features'. I think there are 2 different interpretations. The first is the opinion expressed in the poem that the only essential is food, therefore 22A needs to be entered accordingly. But for the purpose of the puzzle, 'essential features' of the poem are indeed the author and title.

Thanks for that, Meursault.

Meursault, I agree with your analysis of 14, but it's pretty nonsensical to invent a non-existent container, as the setter has done in several clues. Since the word is extra and does not exist as part of the word, it cannot form part of a container. The word should have been clued as GRA(Y) (N)S. GRAY inside (N) S is nonsense.