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Thanks for that explanation, drxx.
I agree with s_pugh that it's rather contrived. Both the surface and the cryptic syntax are rather clunky. But the bulk of the clues are very good indeed, and made solving a pleasure.

Having thought about the explanation to 38a a bit more, I'm not sure that 'extra' means outside in the sense of containing or surrounding something, so I'm not convinced the clue works.

Hi Dryden, at risk of falling out again, which I don't want to do...the second entry in TCD gives 'outside'. Then, in context of a cryptic clue, I'm happy with that. The wordplay of the clue need not be either coherent in terms of how you might use the word, nor exclusive in interpretation.

dryden - I appreciated the reply from buzzb about the anagram indicator in 8dn, and could just about see what he was getting at but I'm not sure why you think 38ac doesn't work. I'd be interested in hearing more from you or from s-pugh, who obviously shares some of your concerns.
I agree with meursault - I think this particular clue works reasonably well and gives us a fair chance of arriving at the correct answer.

I think my particular failing is an obsession with fairness and I should care a lot more about other aspects of the solving experience.
I would prefer the 'solving pleasure' you describe dryden, to the grind that I experienced (although I've probably left it a little late for that). That's really why I'm asking for more detail but maybe some other time.

Sorry drxx - I know that 38ac works after a fashion and I had little doubt about the answer, but my gut feeling about the clue is that it is messy. It just doesn't sit easy for me. Probably I'm just a stupid pedant and being hyper-critical, so ignore me.

Thanks s-pugh, gut instinct is pretty hard to unwrap but I know what you mean. My gut instinct at least worked well enough for me to know I should have got more out of the puzzle.

I can see the need to get include “lipography” in the title. Without that the puzzle would have been very difficult indeed.
I suspect that “vexatious” may have some significance too. The rest of the puzzle is so well structured that it must be an important word, but I can’t quite work out why. Surely not just to be deliberately annoying.

Check how the quotation continues and that will justify vexatious.

Meursault, I certainly wouldn't want to fall out over the minutiae of clues. We can have disagreements about interpreting language and/or Chambers entries without getting into a row. I don't think a particular meaning given in Chambers should be taken in an all-inclusive sense if it's not used in that way. In this case the examples given in Chambers' second entry all use the meaning of 'beyond' rather than physical containment. However, I do accept that some of the examples given in the third entry (the prefix) support the idea of enclosure, so I'm happy withdraw my reservation about it.

I wasn't trying to nitpick, anyway. I just enjoy parsing clues particularly imaginative or unconventional ones. Cryptic clues exploit ambiguities in language. Sometimes they stretch things a bit too far and I wondered if this was one such example.