Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Morning all,
I had a sneaky feeling the theme today would have something to do with the Guardian’s 200 year anniversary but it wasn’t to be. I also got started in the SE corner. Looking back not sure why. Liked the connection between 7 and 10. Felt the enumeration of 16 should have been (4’4) rather than (8).

It seems I’m about to stick my head quite a long way above the parapet reading the contributions so far.... but surely 12a is glaringly and obviously Pauline? Or have I missed something?

I enjoyed this more than I thought I would! FOI 1d, another vote for 14D as COD. Struggled a bit with the lower half at first, but steady progress once I got going on it.

I wonder if 1a is a salute to Torquemada? In his ‘How to Solve Crosswords’ (1934), the same solution pops up in one of his 5 exemplar clues — the surface itself referring to literary inheritance and poetic transformation... I’d love to know if it’s an Easter egg or just a coincidence. I’ve just written my MPhil coursework on Torquemada so luckily some of the obscurer poets were still swirling around in my memory!

I spent five years doing a daily poetry progamme for NPR stations in America - 1250 in all - and have a bookcase full of obscure poets but had never heard of 1d. Not HH (Saki) but John, I think, whose only major poem (Our Land) is in Gaelic ... strangely at the same time I was listening to Building a Library on Ma Vlast ...
16a is one word but missing an apostrophe.
I agree 12 is very Pauline - and 19 has a smack ...

Before I solved 17d I wasted some time trying to parse PETRARCH for 16a!

I don't see where the first 2 letters of 18d come from - could someone help, please?

Oh dear, struggling today as my knowledge of obscure poets could be written on the world's smallest postage stamp. Would it be considered too spoilerish is someone could tell us how many poets we are looking for here?

justsolve @26
All the solutions that are poets have "poet" in the clue, though one of the "poets" is part of the wordplay in the clue rather than the solution itself.

Chris, I believe those two letters in 18d are represented by “well” in the clue, as an exclamation

I finished this crossword before 10 o'clock. A first for me. Thanks to A level Eng Lit and lifelong interest in literature.
FOI was1d and COD 16a.
Not sure about parsing of 19a

Thanks jono - not very good.

aicram - take an N out of the solution and look up what you have left. It's an archaic term, I would say.