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After last week's turgid slog this was fun, with only a few annoying obscurities that required Google research - chalcedony, ridotto, llano
Stumped by just one:
35a Free novel initially enjoyed by fashionable young man.
B?C?S?E?

Also, can anyone explain the 'E' in 16a:
Bug eerie E Sussex town picked up (6-6)
A: Creepy-crawly.
Eerie = creepy, Sussex town = Crawley, which is in West Sussex, so I don't see what the 'E' is doing.

StrangelyBrown. I hated the clue for 35 (and mentioned it on the Pedants United thread)

It's Buck - fashionable young man
She - novel (published over 100n years ago!)
E - initially enjoyed, first letter of 'enjoyed'.
Buckshee, free, no charge.

BUCK SHE E

You would need to put (pick up) the E in CRAWLY to make it CRAWLEY

Thank you Malone. I agree with you about 35a, to use 'novel' to give 'she' is very poor.
And thank you ChrisE, I took 'picked up' in 16a to indicate a homophone of crawly/Crawley, hence the unexplained 'E'.

Talking about Crawley, have you seen the football result?

Thanks, StrangelyBrown. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought using simply 'novel' to lead to something published in 1887 is less than ideal!

Hi folks,

Got those ( probably because I don't really try to parse) but stuck on:

1d Wife leaves old Welsh county, going over English river (5)
R - Y - E

or maybe my Alyssum is wrong for 12 A ?

Thanks !

Dandhh, your first letter is wrong. The answer is a famous Scottish river...

Thanks !

Hello dandhh,
Your alyssum is correct.
For 1d think of a five letter county in the north of Wales (a former one apparently, I obviously haven't being paying attention because I didn't know that), then substitute the letter w for e to get a river in Scotland.