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Thanks drxx. I'd rather hastily put a 'c' at the front of 33a to make something rough and hadn't considered the clue hard enough. 10d is pretty convoluted...and a step too far methinks!

Mostly done but still not seeing the theme. Very confused by what I think are the last two words of the 'work'.
I really need to solve 23d if someone can throw me a lifeline.
41a, I have entered the only thing that fits but no idea why!

Lumen 23d, a 7 letter word for receiving, topped and tailed, made plural (Succeeded) results in some old, big 'corrected last word'.

Oh, and 41 across. First part is to lodge (deposit etc), last part is in private (as in to the audience). The whole is I think, sort of, to reverse a judgement ie invalidate. There's a v early typo/misprint.

Thanks for those granama.
I cracked the theme a little time ago too.
I just have a few empty cells in SE corner left, I think I will get there.
Oh and the highlighting to do, which I think isn't going to be in straight lines.

Leaving aside your problem with that corner, lumen, you should be able to identify the name, which does run in straight lines.

Jings, that was hard! A long struggle with obscurity both in the clues and the theme. But embedding such extensive information in the clues was quite an achievement and there was a very satisfying end game. So thanks to Kirsanov for a thorough work-out.

Finally finished, what a struggle! A true challenge from Kirsanov:-)

Before I file it away, can I get some closure on the parsing for ...

16a - Parcel returned with note to timeless Old Emperor of Japan (6)

I think this is a normal clue so the special instructions don't apply.

The definition is "old emperor of Japan" and I think the last letter could be "to timeless" so O and the penultimate letter could be a "note" but I can't equate my first 4 letters to "parcel" forwards or backwards/'returned' in fact, they don't even make a word (but would if BO was added and they were 'returned')

Cancel that, I see it now - the note is the first 2 letters and the next 3 are the (Indian) "parcel" returned:-)