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I believe I have finished this puzzle, but I have two nagging doubts. Firstly, I have not needed to use the spare words. Secondly, obeying the final instruction (if I am correct) leaves non-words. Do others have the same result?

0pt0 You could definitely solve this without the extra words, if you happen to have the knowledge to understand what the 8 answers represent (I didn’t).
I have the same query about non-words.

It does leave non words. But I am not sure what you mean about not needing to use the spare words. Every word removed from a clue has a use in the endgame, either to spell the work and author or to provide a synonym for a word in the theme entries, as the preamble says. So it sounds like you’ve finished without understanding it fully.

Yes, you will have non-words

When you say you did not need to use the extra words, I guess you are referring to the 9 extras that define themed entries or parts of those. The other 26 extras have terminal letters that spell the sources and author, so you must need those.

I suppose you can fill the grid by guessing the unchecked letters in the thematic entries, but I would think you would need to match the 9 extras with their counterparts to be confident about your grid fill.

Exactly so, buzzb. You put it better than me

Blimey! I was confident with my solution without recourse to the extra words, but now doubting myself. Anybody else in this quandry?

I’m sure you’ll be correct, bc, but I’d have thought to satisfy yourself that 21a and 37a were correct you’d have matched them to the remaining words. Actually there’s a variant old spelling for 37a which could be allowed. Maybe they think the absence of an Elizabethan indicator disqualifies it.

I may have misunderstood. If you have the theme, conceivably you have worked out the entries without the extra words. So not strictly necessary, but nice to dot the i’s and cross the t’s

There may be a variant spelling for 37a but it would not make sense as a review.

Am I right in thinking the final grid has empty cells ?