Mark Diehl Wins Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge!

I'm delighted to announce that litzer and proofreader Mark Diehl is the first-place winner in the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge (and that no ghost stepped in to take over his lead!)!  Late last night Mark sent 33 more puzzles with 51 mistakes, bringing his total number of found mistakes in September and October to an amazing 1,742!  (Just imagine if all those mistakes hadn't been caught—a frightful thought!).  Mark's prizes are a $25 Amazon gift card, a surprise pre-Shortzian artifact, and a Puzzazz e-book of his choice.

Howard Barkin came in second, with 345 total found mistakes, and wins a $25 Amazon gift card; Todd Gross, with 165, was third and wins a pre-Shortzian artifact; and Dave Phillips, with 46, was the random prize winner and receives a Puzzazz e-book.  (Numbers were assigned to contestants based on their rankings in the mistakes totals; the numbers were then put into a random number generator, which produced the number 5—Dave's position in the rankings.)

Thanks so much again to the winners and to everyone else who participated in the contest—and who didn't but still continued proofreading!  We've made a tremendous amount of progress in the past two months—so much so that I've decided to continue the proofreading totals if anyone wants to keep counting!  If you do, just continue sending in the total number of mistakes you find in your proofreading batch, and I'll post them elsewhere on this site.

Finally, many thanks again to Roy Leban for donating the Puzzazz e-book codes!  If you're a solver who isn't familiar with Puzzazz yet, be sure to check out their impressive selection of crossword, cryptic, and other puzzle books for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch by clicking here!

Spooky End to the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge?, Blast! from the Past, and More Louise Earnest and Eileen Lexau Photos

Spooky End to the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge?

Happy Halloween!  We're in the final hours of the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge, and if you take a look at the Contest Totals page, you'll see that Mark Diehl is in the lead, with nearly 1,700 found mistakes (congratulations, Mark!)!  But could that change between now and midnight—might a ghost proofreader suddenly overtake him?  We'll have to wait and see—I'll announce the final results in a special post tomorrow!

"So many ghastly—and ghostly—mistakes!"

In the meantime, here's a recap of the past week.  Late Friday night Mark sent in 31 puzzles with 57 mistakes, and then 30 more with 43 mistakes Saturday night.  Sunday evening Todd Gross sent 10 puzzles with 16 mistakes, which were followed later on by 34 from Mark with 27 mistakes and then another 17 from Mark with 27 mistakes.  Late Tuesday afternoon Mark sent 30 more with 55 mistakes, and on Wednesday night he sent 31 more with 17 mistakes and then 30 with 55 mistakes.  Thursday afternoon Mark sent 31 with 50 mistakes, which were followed by 31 more with 16 mistakes and then 19 more with 14 mistakes later on.  And this week Howard Barkin sent in 31 puzzles with 33 mistakes.  Thanks so much again, everyone—terrific job!

New Feature: Blast! from the Past

As most of you know, we finished litzing all the available puzzles some time ago, and now that the litzing phase of the project is behind us—at least until more puzzles are found—I've decided to retire the Litzer of the Month feature and replace it with something new.  The Litzer of the Month page and all the interviews will remain a permanent part of the site, however, and can be viewed by clicking here or on the Litzer of the Month tab above.

The new feature is Blast! from the Past—if you were a fan of the PS Stumpers on Twitter (see @pspuzzleproject), be sure to check out Blast!  Each week a new Blast! challenge will appear in the sidebar where the Litzer of the Month announcement used to be.  If you think you know the answer, e-mail it to me at preshortzianpuzzleproject at gmail dot com (using the usual format).  Unlike with the PS Stumpers, though, you only get one guess (and no extra hints!), so be sure it's your best!  There are no prizes, but there'll be fame and glory if you win:  The following week, I'll post the name of the first person to send in the correct response here and on Twitter and Facebook.  (If you're the first but you'd rather remain anonymous, that's fine too—just let me know!)  Good luck!

More Louise Earnest and Eileen Lexau Photos from Todd Gross

Following up on last week's post about Louise Earnest and Eileen Lexau, Todd Gross found a couple of group shots of these two pre-Shortzian icons.  I've edited the photos so they contain just the constructors themselves:

Louise Seifert (Earnest), 1933

Eileen O'Hara (Lexau), 1947

Thanks so much again for these new photos, Todd!

Featured Puzzle

Today's featured puzzle, whose constructor is unknown, was published October 31, 1968; edited by Margaret Farrar; litzed by Martin Herbach; and proofread by Mark Diehl.  For those of you who want to take a crack at this puzzle before reading on, it's available on XWord Info.  The puzzle contains four symmetrically interlocking theme entries that are appropriate for Halloween but that don't necessarily relate to this spooky holiday, such as A GHOST OF A CHANCE.  Two of the theme entries, GRAVEYARD SHIFTS and CHRISTMAS SPIRIT, are Halloween-ized in their clues as "Costumes for tonight." and "Out-of-season spook, maybe.," respectively.  The central down theme entry, TRICK OR TREATS ("Slogans for tonight."), is a somewhat awkward plural, though I really admire how nicely it crosses the central across theme entry and holds the puzzle together.  The nonthematic fill also feels somewhat spirited, with the frightful-yet-lively entries SILENCER, STARK, ASTART, TROUNCE, and PSYCH; also, the INHALANT/NONUSER crossing is reminiscent of a Halloween party that has run afoul of the long arm of the law!  Neither INHALANT nor NONUSER is clued in connection with drugs, though this crossing is nevertheless curious.  Spooky entries aside, the puzzle contains a handful of additional fresh words and phrases, such as ICEBERG, TOE DANCE, and TIE BAR.  Going back to the Halloween theme of today's post, there are also a few pieces of fill on the grisly side, such as the six-letter partials, ONE TOO and SPEED A; RECRAM ("Study for another exam."); and ESTHS (which seem to be much more well known as Estonians).  The timeliness of the theme and the multitude of creepy entries/clues make up for these blemishes, though, and the puzzle thus feels quite strong overall.  The puzzle can be viewed and further analyzed on XWord Info; as usual, the answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

Or can it?  MWAHAHAHA!

And now for the treat . . .

1968 Puzzles Up, Plus Todd Gross on Louise Earnest and Eileen Lexau

1968 Puzzles Up on Xword Info

Great news:  The 1968 proofread puzzles are now up on XWord Info and, as usual, beautifully displayed by Jim Horne!  We've now proofread 26 years; I'm currently sending out puzzles from 1961 to 1966, and the first puzzles from the 1950s should go out for proofing soon!

We've had another very busy week as we near the end of the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge (which Mark Diehl leads, at 1,330 found mistakes—congratulations, Mark!).  Early Saturday morning, new proofreader Wei-Hwa Huang sent in 31 puzzles with 52 mistakes.  They were followed a few hours later by 6 puzzles with 24 mistakes from Mark.  That afternoon, Todd Gross sent 10 puzzles with 8 mistakes; a few hours later, another 31 with 13 mistakes came in from Mark.  Later Saturday night Mark sent in 30 more with 33 mistakes and then another 12 with 8 mistakes.  Sunday morning, he sent 22 more puzzles with 8 mistakes and then 8 more with 1 mistake that afternoon; 30 more with 39 mistakes followed late that night.  Monday night, Todd sent 14 more puzzles with 20 mistakes; later on, 26 more with 25 mistakes came in from Mark.  Tuesday morning Mark sent 20 puzzles with 58 mistakes and then 33 more with 53 mistakes that night.  Late Wednesday night he sent 31 puzzles with 32 mistakes.  Thursday afternoon Todd sent 11 puzzles with 13 mistakes, which were followed by 30 more with 32 mistakes from Mark late that night.  Friday afternoon, Denny Baker sent in 23 puzzles but didn't count the mistakes.  This has truly been an amazing week—thanks so much, everyone!

Todd Gross on Louise Earnest and Eileen Lexau

Litzer, proofreader, and pre-Shortzian historian Todd Gross has been busy researching and recently uncovered information about two more constructors:  Louise Earnest and Eileen Lexau.

Louise Earnest
According to my (still incomplete) records, Louise Earnest published 30 puzzles during the pre-Shortz era.  Todd writes:

Photo courtesy of the Warwick Valley Dispatch.

She was born Louise Seifert in September of 1915 in York County, PA.  She married William Earnest in nearby Dover, where they lived for a time raising their two children before moving to Warwick, NY.

The above photo is from an article in the Warwick Valley Dispatch, announcing a showing of her artwork in September, 2005 on her 90th birthday.  Another article from the Dispatch, which you can read here (p. 10), gives more details about her life, including her work as a crossword constructor.

It appears Ms. Earnest is still alive—at the age of 99!—and living in Warwick.  If so, she could become the second centenarian pre-Shortzian constructor late next year.

Great find, Todd!  The Dispatch article notes that Louise Earnest has "an extensive library and hundreds of the crossword puzzles she constructed have been published in the Daily and Sunday 'New York Times,' in Margaret Farrar's books, pocket books and Will Weng's collections"; she also "won prizes in Bantam's Great Crossword Puzzle Hunt."  A fascinating portrait of a legendary pre-Shortzian cruciverbalist!

Eileen Lexau
Todd also found a great piece on Eileen Lexau, who, according to my records, published 17 puzzles in the pre-Shortz era (and, per XWord Info, 10 in the Shortz era).  Todd reports:

Photo courtesy of the Star Tribune

She was born Eileen Agnes O’Hara in 1927 in St. Paul Minnesota.  Her long and rich life is summarized in her obituary here and a follow-up Pioneer Press article on 27 Nov (citation in Pre-Shortzian Constructors), I’ll just hit the highlights.  She was born and bred Catholic, graduating from the College of St. Catherine in 1948, working for Catholic Worker in New York City after graduation, and returning to St. Paul to become an assistant editor at Catholic Digest, where she met Henry Lexau.

They married in 1952, raising six children.  In 1970, with her children grown, she worked for several Minnesota state agencies, including the Dept. of Natural Resources, where she retired from in 1990.  She passed away in November of 2004.

The follow-up article mentions it would “take Lexau anywhere from several days to several weeks to perfect a crossword puzzle, and she didn't mind sharing the half-finished product with her family.”

Another great find, Todd!  Eileen Lexau had apparently said the following about crossword construction to the St. Paul Pioneer Press two years earlier:  "'It's absorbing.  It takes you out of yourself.'"  One of her daughters, Elizabeth, noted that Eileen "didn't make a great deal of money at it, but it gave her joy."  Thanks so much again for all this terrific research, Todd!  And thanks, too, to George Barany, Nancy Herther, and Jon Jeffryes, who helped locate some of this material.

Featured Puzzle

This week's featured puzzle, whose constructor is unknown, was published June 25, 1960; edited by Margaret Farrar; and litzed by Ralph Bunker.  The puzzle contains six symmetrically interlocking theme entries that either start or end with a type of seafood; as a bonus, none of the theme entries directly relates to its original seafood variety.  The theme set feels fresh (pun intended!)—I especially like the entry LITTLE SHRIMP (clued as "Insignificant one")!  Although I'd never heard of LOBSTER TRICK ("On a newspaper, the sunrise watch.") before looking through this puzzle, I appreciated learning this colorful phrase.  However, MUSSULMAN ("Mohammedan.") bothers me a bit since it's the only theme entry that contains a homophone of a type of seafood rather than the seafood itself.  I also think the puzzle would have been even stronger if all the theme entries had started with a type of seafood or if there had been more of a balance of theme entries that started with a type of seafood and ones that ended with a type of seafood.  Nevertheless, I always appreciate seeing puzzles with solid themes in an era in which almost all daily puzzles were themeless, especially when they relate to what I had for dinner (shrimp scampi)!  The nonthematic fill, although peppered with uncommon letters, feels a bit chewy (again, pun intended!) in places—I can imagine that the SPEZIA ("Italian city (with "La"))/UZBEG ("Native of Turkistan.") crossing stumped many solvers, and I wasn't thrilled to see the crosswordese-y AYRE ("Point on the Isle of Man."), the technical legal term ADEEMS ("Revokes legally."), or the minor city ARMONK ("Village north of White Plains.").  The inclusion of RECIPE at 41-Down is a nice touch/thematic tie-in, however, and seeing a handful of J, X, and Z words that don't show up as often in crosswords is refreshing.  In all, this is an above-average pre-Shortzian puzzle in terms of theme, with numerous rare letters to keep things lively!  The solution grid (with highlighted theme entries) appears below:

In the Farrar Era—and Mark Diehl Passes 1,000 in the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge

Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge:  Mark Diehl Passes 1,000!

Only two more weeks of the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge remain, and just this morning Mark Diehl passed 1,000—he has now found 1,004 mistakes!  Congratulations, Mark!

It's been a very busy week, starting with 21 puzzles containing 11 mistakes from Mark on Friday night.  Saturday afternoon he sent 32 more with 12 mistakes, which were followed by another 22 with 35 mistakes that night.  Sunday morning he sent 30 more with 19 mistakes, then another 31 with 27 mistakes that night, and still another 30 with 34 mistakes later on, putting his total found mistakes at more than 900!  Late Monday morning Denny Baker sent in 31 puzzles but didn't count the mistakes.  That afternoon Mark sent 31 more with 18 mistakes, which were followed by 29 more with 19 mistakes that night.  Mark sent another 31 with 20 mistakes Tuesday night and then 30 with 9 mistakes late Wednesday night.  Thursday afternoon Todd Gross sent in 10 puzzles with 12 mistakes.  That evening Mark sent 22 more with 15 mistakes, which were followed by another 25 with 9 mistakes Friday morning, putting his total over 1,000!  Then this afternoon Todd sent in 10 more puzzles with 8 mistakes.  And this week Howard Barkin sent 32 puzzles with 30 mistakes.  Thanks so much again, everyone—we're making terrific progress!

In the Farrar Era

Last week XWord Info's Jim Horne pointed out that with the last installment of proofread puzzles on XWord Info—1969—we were now finished with the Will Weng puzzles and into the Margaret Farrar era, which began on February 15, 1942.  Indeed, the last puzzle Farrar edited was the January 5 Sunday opus by Frances Hansen, appropriately titled "Ring in the New"—not only for the New Year but also for the new editor, Will Weng.  On that day, the Times published a lengthy announcement of Farrar's retirement, noting that, at 71, she was currently editing her 97th crossword puzzle collection for Simon & Schuster and had edited 18 puzzle books for the Times.  The full text of this fascinating article, which contains several amusing anecdotes and reminiscences by Farrar, is available through libraries on ProQuest.

Courtesy of The New York Times

Several weeks later, on January 26, the Times published the following particularly charming letter from a reader:

Courtesy of The New York Times

Fortunately for us, we're working backwards in time, so rather than bidding adieu to Margaret, we're heralding in her era!

Featured Puzzle

Today's featured puzzle, whose constructor is unknown, was published on July 16, 1960; edited by Margaret Farrar; and litzed by Ralph Bunker.  This eye-catching 64-word themeless is ambitious, wide open, and beautifully filled—in fact, the puzzle doesn't have a single entry that feels particularly obscure, and there are only a couple of short entries that seem subpar (ESNE and LIGNE), both of which appeared in numerous other pre-Shortzian and Shortz-era crosswords.  I don't think I've come across a single pre-Shortzian puzzle that contains this few iffy pieces of short fill!  The upper right and lower left corners are particularly aesthetically pleasing:  In addition to incorporating only 6-, 7-, and 8-letter entries, these corners have a smattering of Scrabbly letters and contain numerous fun, in-the-language entries, such as CRAVAT, RIPPLE, PELLET, CRIMEA, and the IMPALE/IMPALA crossing.  Other highlights in the grid include MAN EATER, DRESSING ROOMS, and TROLLEY; admittedly, none of these entries knocks my socks off, but I really appreciate how cleanly they interlock.  I'm not as fond of CIGARETS (as opposed to CIGARETTES), and I've never heard of a MUSK TREE (clued as "Highly scented Australian plant."), but I'm just nitpicking at this point.  The clues also have a nice amount of spice—"Favorite beatnik word." for LIKE and "'All men are ___'" for LIARS particularly tickle me.  I find it fascinating that the word like has been prevalent in our dialect for more than 50 years—nowadays, like has become so commonplace that it's frequently used as a conversation filler!  In all, this is a masterful pre-Shortzian construction, and I look forward to locating additional gems as I finish looking through litzed puzzles from 1960.  Now that the wheels of the proofreading machine are spinning so fast, I have a feeling the Pre-Shortzian Puzzle Project in its entirety will be complete before I achieve my personal goal of looking through every New York Times crossword in detail!  For now, here's the solution grid for this week's featured puzzle:

October Litzer of the Month Ed Sessa, Plus Martin Ashwood-Smith on Vaughn Keith

Proofreading 1966 Puzzles

It's been another busy week, starting off with 19 puzzles from Mark Diehl that had 19 mistakes.  Saturday afternoon he sent 33 more with 38 mistakes, then later on 27 more with 8 mistakes, 16 with 35 mistakes, and 6 with 2 mistakes!  Sunday morning, Mark sent another 31 with 16 mistakes, then later that afternoon, an additional 30 with 16 mistakes.  Late Monday night Todd Gross sent in 16 puzzles with 20 mistakes, which were followed by 31 more from Mark late Thursday afternoon with 15 mistakes.  And this week Howard Barkin sent 31 puzzles with 24 mistakes.  Thanks so much, everyone—though some puzzles from 1967, 1968, and 1969 are still out with proofreaders, quite a few from 1966 have already come in!  And as I write this, Mark still leads in the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge, with 621 found mistakes—congratulations, Mark!

October Litzer of the Month Ed Sessa

I'm delighted to announce that Ed Sessa is the October Litzer of the Month!  In addition to being a New York Times constructor and retired pediatrician, Ed is also a bird carver.  To read more about him, click here or on the Litzer of the Month tab above.

Martin Ashwood-Smith on Vaughn Keith

I recently received an e-mail from litzer and quad-stack constructor extraordinaire Martin Ashwood-Smith, who had been wondering about Maleska-era constructor Vaughn Keith, "one of the early (if not the earliest) masters of the triple stack genre."  Martin had found an obituary from 1990, which you can link to here, and wrote:

He was a school teacher who died at the young age of 40 of AIDS. The obit shows that this talented man faced his death with great bravery. The obit speaks for itself. Very sad, and also inspiring.

Vaughn Keith was a classicist who seems to have led a fascinating life.  Thanks so much again for this great find, Martin!

Featured Puzzle

Today's featured puzzle, whose constructor is unknown, was published March 22, 1961; edited by Margaret Farrar; and litzed by Ralph Bunker.  Each of this puzzle's theme entries is a TV or movie reference that contains at least one title, such as MRS MINIVER (clued as "Theatrical headliner of 1942.").  Having each theme entry be a TV/movie reference adds a nice level of consistency to the puzzle, and I especially appreciate that none of the titles is directly repeated.  My favorite theme entry is MR PENNYPACKER ("Theatrical headliner of 1959."); even though I'm not familiar with the movie The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker, the words are so much fun to say!  The nonthematic fill also seems pretty solid—I especially like the entries SANTA MARIA, KNIGHTHOOD, and END TABLE, and the only rather iffy piece of fill is the plural RT HONS ("Titles for some civic officials.").  Clues that pique my interest include "Abbreviation useful in the 1800's." for TERR and "Piquancy (from French for orange peel)." for ZEST.  Overall, this puzzle, with its cute theme and minimal reliance on obscurities, is a zesty gem from the early '60s!  The answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

1970 Puzzles Up, PS Notes, Contest Update, and Harold P. Furth Joins Youngest Constructors List

1970 Puzzles Up on XWord Info

We're making terrific progress with the proofreading these days—just last week the 1971 puzzles went up on XWord Info, and this week the 1970 puzzles are up!  Thanks again to Jim Horne for posting them and representing some of the trickier ones so well on the site!  To see them, click here.  If you're wondering how a whole year of puzzles was proofread in a week, the answer is, it wasn't.  The puzzles get sent out in batches to different proofreaders and come back at varying times.  After they're returned, every single puzzle gets looked at again for any obvious remaining mistakes—usually these are just in the Information fields, which proofreaders don't check.

PS Notes

Next, all the litzer and proofreader notes for puzzles that year are investigated.  These notes indicate when someone has found what appears to be—and usually is—an editorial mistake in a puzzle.  Any confirmed mistakes are noted in a PS Note ("Pre-Shortzian Note") for future posting on XWord Info.  PS Notes also generally indicate whether the mistake was unchanged or changed—if the former, the PS Note says what the correct version should have been; if the latter, it provides details on what was changed.  PS Notes may also contain information unrelated to mistakes, as in the example pictured below for the puzzle published on July 4, 1976:

PS Notes are posted as time permits; since things have been very busy here at Litzing and Proofreading Central, most will likely appear after all the proofreading has been completed.  In the meantime, if you happen to come across any mistakes in the pre-Shortzian puzzles, please let me know so they can be corrected.

Proofreading Contest Update

It's been another great week on the proofreading front!  Early Monday morning, Todd Gross sent in 4 puzzles with 3 mistakes.  Then Wednesday morning, Mark Diehl—who's currently in the lead with 307 found mistakes!—sent in 30 puzzles with 39 mistakes, followed by 12 more with 8 mistakes that night and then another 8 with 1 mistake.  Thursday evening, Denny Baker sent 30 more puzzles.  Later that night, Mark sent 30 more with 18 mistakes.  Then early Friday morning, Todd sent 7 more puzzles with 9 mistakes.  And this week Howard Barkin sent in 30 puzzles with 21 mistakes, then 30 more with 59 mistakes.  Awesome job, everyone—thanks so much!  We're in the '60s now—rad!

Harold P. Furth Joins Ranks of Youngest Constructors

Recently I was browsing through the college section in my local library and came across a 1982 book called My Harvard, My Yale.  It's a collection of short essays by notable graduates of Harvard and Yale about their college days.  Curious, I began looking through it and came across the reminiscences of a Harvard alumnus named Harold Furth.  Harold was born in Vienna and attended Harvard twice, from 1947 to 1951 and from 1952 to 1956.  He was a professor of astrophysics and the director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory for many years.  He died in 2002, 20 years after the book was published.

Harold P. Furth as an adult. Photo

courtesy of Wikipedia.

What most interested me about Harold's memoir, though, was that in the very first paragraph, he wrote:

During my last three years in boarding school, I created a New York Times Sunday crossword puzzle.  Later on I found that professional puzzle-makers have special equipment:  lists of all twelve-letter words ending in ICK, and so forth.  For me, the Sunday puzzle was an insanely ambitious labor, relieved by flashes of insight and ecstasy when a whole corner would fall into place.
     Being fond of puzzles, I did well in physics, but found the exercises stultifying. . . .

Later, Furth wrote for The Harvard Lampoon and published some poetry in The New Yorker, signed only with his initials.  He notes:

In fact, the only "literary" item that I have ever signed with my full name, prior to this one, is a New York Times crossword puzzle that appeared one Sunday in the winter of 1948.

How fortuitous!  I checked my database and discovered that Harold constructed the  puzzle that was published on December 12, 1948; his byline was "Harold P. Furth."  According to Wikipedia, Harold was born on January 13, 1930, which means he was 18 years, 10 months old when his puzzle was published and so is now the 28th-youngest constructor ever to have a crossword puzzle published in the Times!  I was thrilled to be able to find this new record—who knows what others will appear over time as we continue making our way through the pre-Shortzian canon!  To see XWord Info's full list of Youngest Constructors, click here.

Featured Puzzle

Appropriately enough, today's featured puzzle, "Myths and Legends," was constructed by Harold P. Furth; published December 12, 1948; edited by Margaret Farrar; and litzed by Barry Haldiman.  This 166-word 23 x 23 is one of the few 1940s Times crosswords whose theme doesn't center around current events—rather, it contains a sprinkling of classical mythology references, such as TALARIA, CHARON, and BACCHUS (which are, incidentally, the first three across entries).  The theme entries' relatively short lengths and asymmetric arrangement ultimately make this puzzle feel more like a giant themeless, though I nevertheless appreciate the forward-thinking use of a noncurrent events theme.  Highlights/interesting words in the nonthematic fill include HUDIBRASTIC (clued as "Satirical in Butler's manner."), BARBETTE ("Gun platform."), ANALECTIC ("Made up of literary selections."—a much more interesting term than the crosswordese ANA!), ROTARIAN ("Member of a great civic club."), CAVEMEN, CATAPULT, and COGNAC.  There aren't very many iffy entries in this one that haven't appeared in other pre-Shortzian puzzles, though ENNUIED ("Bored.") seems like a bit of a stretch.  Overall, this is a cleaner-than-average puzzle with a nice dose of theme material—and certainly an auspicious debut for the then-teenage Harold Furth!  I very much enjoyed learning more about Harold's impressive life, and I hope to stumble upon more nuggets about pre-Shortzian constructors as time goes on.  In the meantime, here's the solution grid to Harold's puzzle (without highlighted theme entries, since the theme is relatively self-explanatory and the entries aren't arranged with any rhyme or reason):

1971 Puzzles Up on XWord Info, Plus Proofreading Contest Update

1971 Puzzles Up on XWord Info

Great news:  The proofread 1971 puzzles are now up on XWord Info!  As usual, Jim Horne did a great job with these—thanks again, Jim!  Since the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge began, we've been making terrific progress with the proofreading—in fact, the 1970 puzzles should be done within the next week or two!  I'm now sending out puzzles from 1969 and 1968, so we should have 1969—the first year of the turbulent '60s—finished soon!  Thanks so much again, everyone!

Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge Update

Mark Diehl now leads the pack in the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge, with 241 found mistakes (and Howard Barkin isn't far behind, with 176!)!  Here's how the week shaped up:  Late Friday night, Mark sent in 30 puzzles with 34 mistakes.  Then Saturday morning, an anonymous proofreader sent in 16 puzzles with 20 mistakes.  Sunday afternoon Denny Baker sent in 30 puzzles but didn't track the mistakes.  Late Wednesday afternoon, Mark sent 31 puzzles with 12 mistakes; then 3 minutes later, 20 puzzles with 11 mistakes; and late that night, 30 more with 16 mistakes!  Howard Barkin sent in 31 puzzles with 72 mistakes, then 30 puzzles with 36 mistakes, then 16 puzzles with 24 mistakes, and finally 11 puzzles with 14 mistakes!  Great job, everyone!

In going through the puzzles, Howard noticed that a few clues were completely different from the ones on the PDFs.  This has happened before, usually because some puzzles were originally litzed from books or CDs, where editorial changes were sometimes made.  When we come across situations like this, we change the clues back to what the original clues on the PDFs were.  However, in order to do this, we need to check the litzed puzzles carefully against PDFs, otherwise situations like this go unnoticed.  Typically the edited clues for books or CDs made sense, so there's no way to catch them unless the puzzles are proofread against the originals on the PDFs.  Though doing this is more time-consuming, it allows us to replicate the original puzzles as faithfully as possible.  Thanks again for catching these edited clues, Howard!

If anyone else would like to take the self-test and help out with the proofreading, just let me know!

Featured Puzzle

Today's featured puzzle, whose constructor is unknown, was published January 28, 1961; edited by Margaret Farrar; and litzed by the prolific Ralph Bunker.  Each of this puzzle's theme entries ends in a plural season (e.g., JONATHAN WINTERS); as a bonus, the constructor included the reveal entry FOUR SEASONS (clued as "One year.") at 10-Down.  I really appreciate the numerous levels of consistency this theme demonstrates:  All theme entries end in a season, all the seasons are plural, and exactly half the theme entries are people (and half places),  Having a reveal entry makes this puzzle even more impressive, and having JONATHAN WINTERS cross two other theme entries is truly spectacular!  Even though I wasn't familiar with BILL SUMMERS ("Big League umpire") or GLENS FALLS (Charles Evans Hughes's birthplace, in N. Y.), this puzzle's theme is a winner in my books.  The nonthematic fill has a slew of fun and fresh entries, such as CROSSTOWN, RAPPORT, CARBON, and, my favorite, CAMP DAVID (complete with the contemporary clue, "Where Eisenhower and Khrushchev met")!  The nonthematic fill also feels very polished—the only entries that stand out to me as being particularly unusual are AROSA ("Popular ski resort in Switzerland.") and BOSKY ("Like a dell.").  BOSKY, which has appeared in just two other pre-Shortzian puzzles so far, especially intrigued me; it turns out that this word, which Webster defines as "having abundant trees or shrubs" or "of or relating to a woods," comes from the middle English bosk (meaning "bush") and has been around since the 16th century.  In all, with its top-notch theme and smooth, sparkly fill, this is a stellar pre-Shortzian puzzle!  I hope I come across more of this mystery constructor's work as I continue to review the litzed puzzles.  For now, this puzzle's answer grid (with highlighted theme entries) can be seen below:

Litzing Done, Proofreading Contest Under Way, 1972 Puzzles Up on XWord Info, September Litzer of the Month Tracy Bennett, and a Gem from Stan Newman's Collection

Litzing Done (for Now)

We reached another major milestone on Saturday:  The final available litzed puzzles came in, so we're now done!  We finished up one day before my goal of having all the litzed puzzles back by the end of August—thanks again, everyone!  As the litzing thermometer shows, we're at 16,077—148 puzzles shy of the 16,225 pre-Shortzian crosswords.  Most of the missing puzzles weren't published in New York because of newspaper strikes; at some point in the future, I'll continue looking into other ways of locating these puzzles.  In the meantime, thanks so much to everyone who made it happen—awesome, awesome job!

Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge Gets Under Way

Here's the lowdown on the rest of this past week:  On Saturday afternoon, Tracy Bennett sent in 31 proofread puzzles.  That night, Martin Herbach sent 28 litzed puzzles, and then two minutes later, Mark Diehl sent in 31 proofread puzzles!  Monday morning, September 1, the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge officially began, and Mark sent the first batch of puzzles—26, with 16 mistakes!  A couple of hours later, he sent another 26 with 31 mistakes . . . then that afternoon, 31 more with 73 mistakes!  Late that night, Todd Gross sent in 10 puzzles with 13 mistakes.  Early Tuesday morning, Mark sent 28 more puzzles with 13 mistakes, and late that night, another 31 with 15 mistakes.  Wednesday afternoon, Todd sent 10 more puzzles with 9 mistakes, and late that night, Mark sent 31 more with 20 mistakes.  Thursday afternoon, Todd sent another 10 puzzles with 25 mistakes.  And this week Howard Barkin sent 31 puzzles with 31 mistakes.  As I write this, Mark has found the most mistakes so far (168) and is followed by Todd (47) and Howard (31)!  Great job, everyone!  If you'd like to participate in the contest, just let me know—details, along with the latest proofreading totals, can be found on the Contest Totals page.

1972 Puzzles Up on XWord Info

In other news, thanks to Jim Horne, the 1972 puzzles are now up on XWord Info!  I hope you all enjoy looking through and/or solving this latest installment.  We're almost done proofreading the Will Weng puzzles—just three more years to go, most of which are done or well on their way!  I've even been sending out a few packets of Farrar puzzles for proofreading, and I expect we'll be well into the age of puzzles with periods at the ends of their clues by the time the proofreading contest winds down.

September Litzer of the Month Tracy Bennett

I'm also delighted to announce that New York Times constructor Tracy Bennett is the September Litzer of the Month!  In addition to having litzed 49 puzzles, Tracy has proofread hundreds more, usually sending a new batch at the end of each month.  To read more about Tracy, click here or on the Litzer of the Month tab above.

A Gem from Stan Newman's Collection

I was looking through my rapidly expanding collection of old crossword books and came across one that particularly intrigued me:  Puzzles for Everybody.  This book, which comes from Stan Newman's collection, appears to have been published in 1955.  The book is jam-packed with crosswords, anagrams, trivia quizzes, and all sorts of other word and math puzzles . . . and there's a picture of a different scantily-clad (for that time period, at least) woman every few pages whose name is incorporated into one of the puzzles!  (Since this book's publisher is Avon, referring to these women as "Avon ladies" from here on out seems fitting!)  What I find fascinating is that this book is titled Puzzles for Everybody but clearly targets a male solving audience!  The book seems to epitomize the rampant sexism during the '50s and '60s by indirectly excluding women from "Everybody."  In any case, the crosswords in this book definitely aren't as eye-catching as the Avon ladies!  To their credit, these 11 x 11s don't contain very many glaring obscurities, but they appear to rotate through the same few grid patterns and are heavy on crosswordese. The grid patterns themselves have handfuls of unsightly cheater squares, but at least there aren't too many two-letter words.  The clues are mostly standard, though there are a few clever ones, such as "It's all around you" for AIR.  I was ultimately more impressed with some of the novel variety puzzle forms in this book than with the crosswords.  One of my favorites was a letter maze that, when traced properly, spelled the 8-word, 39-letter phrase KEEP DIGGING AND YOU WILL EVENTUALLY LOCATE IT!  In sum, this puzzle book was quite entertaining to look through, and the Avon ladies definitely distinguished it from some contemporary volumes I've thumbed through.  Here are some pictures of Puzzles for Everybody:

Front cover

Crossword No. 1

An "Avon lady"

Back cover

Featured Puzzle

Today's featured puzzle, whose constructor is unknown, was published June 28, 1961; edited by Margaret Farrar; and litzed by Nancy Kavanaugh.  Instead of going with the traditional themeless structure from this time period (four corners with scores of seven-letter entries), the constructor of this sparkly 70-worder opted for a more sectioned-off grid with numerous wide-open spaces.  I don't think I've seen such a grid in a pre-Shortzian puzzle—I really appreciate the creativity and ambitiousness of this design!  The 6 x 5 chunks in the upper right and lower left are particularly visually appealing, and the middle and remaining two corners don't disappoint aesthetically.  Highlights in the fill include PARSEC, KNIVES, SANS SERIF, WIREMAN, SUNDAE, and SLIPPERS; also, although I've never heard of QUANTICO (clued as "Marine Corps base in Virginia."), it sounds nice and uses a Q.  What really makes this puzzle stand out, though, is that the fill is almost junk-free:  The only two entries that seem unreasonably obscure are RABIC ("Pertaining to hydrophobia.") and CUNEO ("Wedge-shaped: Comb. form.)—very impressive given the challenge posed by the grid structure!  The clues are mostly standard definitions—the only one that really gave me pause was "Former monetary units of Lithuania." for LITS.  This is exactly the type of clue that proofreader Todd Gross would cite as being unnecessarily obscure; I would have much preferred something like "Wagons-___ (sleeping cars)."  Nevertheless, this puzzle feels very strong on the whole, and I look forward to seeing more creative themeless grids as I continue looking through puzzles from the the early '60s and late '50s!  For now, this puzzle's solution can be seen below:

Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge—Plus More Todd Gross Research

Project Update

It's been an amazing week on the proofreading front, with approximately six more months done!  The puzzles started coming in Tuesday evening, when Mark Diehl sent a batch of 31.  Early Wednesday morning, he sent 28 more, then another 31 late that afternoon and 31 more Thursday morning!  Whew!  An hour or so later, Todd Gross sent in 10 proofread puzzles.  Then Thursday night, Mark sent 29 more—and then another 24!  Thanks so much again, Mark and Todd—great job!

Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge

While we're on the subject of proofreading, recently I've been thinking about ways to increase our speed without compromising accuracy.  To this end, I've come up with what should be another fun contest—the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge!  Unlike the litzing contests, though, the Pre-Shortzian Proofreading Challenge won't be about speed.  The goal won't be to proofread as many puzzles as possible but to find as many mistakes as possible.  So it will be to your advantage to proofread slowly and carefully.  Obviously, though, the more puzzles you proofread, the more mistakes you'll find!  Here are the rules:

1.  The contest will run from September 1, 2014, until 11:59 p.m. on October 31, 2014.
2.  The minimum number of puzzles each contestant must proofread is 30 (one month, roughly speaking)
3.  Contestants should follow the style rules outlined in the proofreading guide.  If you've never proofread before, you'll need to own Crossword Compiler and contact me first for the proofreading self-test.
4.  Reporting of the number of mistakes found will be on the honor system, so you'll keep your own tally and report it when you return your proofread puzzles.  I'll keep a running total of the mistakes found on the Contest Totals page so you'll be able to see how your total stacks up against other totals.
5.  Logical groupings of mistakes will count as one mistake.  An example of this would be if you discover three missing ellipsis points; this would count as one mistake, not three.  Another example might be an underscore that is two lines too long; deleting the extra two lines would count as one mistake, not two.  Adding missing quotation marks would also count as one mistake, not two.  You get the idea.  It's definitely possible to find more than one mistake in a clue, but they have to be clearly different mistakes.  An example might be a misspelled name, followed by an incorrect punctuation mark; that would count as two mistakes.
5.  Prizes will be as follows:

1st Prize:  All prizes listed below
2nd Prize:  $25 Amazon gift card
3rd Prize:  A surprise pre-Shortzian artifact from my collection
Random Prize:  A Puzzazz e-book of your choice

I'll announce the contest again on September 1—just a few days away!  Until then, enjoy your Labor Day weekend!

Todd Gross's Research

In addition to continuing with proofreading, Todd has been busy researching again and has come up with some great finds about three pre-Shortzian constructors, two of whom were women.

Diana Sessions

The first is Diana Sessions, who published at least 70 pre-Shortzian puzzles in The New York Times and about whom Todd wrote:

She was born Diana Robinson in Anniston, AL on 2 Oct 1922 and passed away 14 Feb (Valentine's Day) 1984...in Anniston, AL.  My sense is she never lived anywhere else.  In the interim, she married Lewe Sessions on 29 Jul 1942 and raised 4 children.

And yes, the R in Diana R Sessions stands for Robinson.

I haven't found an obituary yet, but I found two articles about her.  Both are from The Anniston Star.  One, from 4 Feb 1968, is a bio that describes her work with crosswords.  [Ed.:  Click here to read it.]  It also has a nice picture of her, with one of her daughters.  By my count, she would have been 45 at the time. . . .

Diana Sessions (right).  Image courtesy of

  The Anniston Star.

Even more interesting, however, is the other article I found, printed on 29 Dec 1974.  Apparently, she was something of an amateur astrologer (one wonders how she found time to do this with raising 4 children and limiting herself to 4 crosswords a year) . . . , and at least according to the article, a pretty good one.  [Ed.:  Click here to read it.]  I'm sure they're cherry-picking the better results, but if people kept going to her to foretell their future, she can't have been too bad at it.

Todd added later:

I'm looking at her 1940 Census record.  It says she had 1 year of college at age 17...but I suspect that's a transcription error.  It also says her parents have no income from their jobs...and neither do a lot of other working folk on that page.  Strange.

Nancy Scandrett Ross

The second female constructor Todd reports on is Nancy Scandrett Ross, who published 34 or more pre-Shortzian puzzles (and 22 Shortz-era constructions) in the Times.  Todd wrote:

The Who's Who bio mentions her being born in NYC, attending Smith College, her career, retiring and moving to Eugene, OR, etc.  But it said nothing about living in Georgia in 1940 when the census was taken.  And her father wasn't living with them.  And none of them apparently worked.  Interesting.

Even better, I got a picture of her from the 1952 Smith College catalog, the year she graduated.  I'm enclosing the picture.  It's really nice putting a face to a name.  I'm really glad Jim Horne came up with idea of having pictures of constructors.

Nancy Scandrett [Ross].  Image cour-

tesy of Smith College.

Bert H. Kruse

Finally, Todd found the following information about pre-Shortzian constructor Bert H. Kruse, who published 63 known pre-Shortzian puzzles in the Times:

Bert Kruse is a modestly common name, and I really didn't have anything beyond his/her name to work with.  But with some effort, and some real luck, I can now confirm that Bert is indeed a he, and has in fact passed away. . . .  And the reason I can confirm it is I found an online obituary for him that mentions he constructed crossword puzzles.  [Ed.:  Click here to read it.]

Thanks so much again, Todd, for all this terrific research!  It really helps bring the pre-Shortzian constructors to life!