(beginner L and french ET disturbed sleep REST)—letters!

They are also very clever, humorous and are written so that each clue actually seems to mean something but never means what it says

O Yes and I learned lots

and now I’m off to find a copy of Tolstoy’s ‘The Cossacks”

As ever I’m hugely grateful for all of your kind comments and beermagnet’s brilliantly detailed blog. If it’s worth anything, bm, the ‘clue-writing satisfaction level’ for 22a was also pretty low but, with it being an obscure word cross-checking a themed answer, I kept well away from doing anything tricky with it – indeed I hoped it would be achingly simple to solve.

The CHIMNEY-POT/CHIMNEY-TOP confusion was something I hadn’t noticed until after the grid fill, but it was a delicious and unexpected bonus to see that the uncertainty could be removed if the likely Nina was spotted.

Liked this puzzle: besides the literary figures there were Kylie, Prince Andrew, George IV, Buck Rogers (a motley crowd) and a bit of risqueness – 11A, 3D, 15D and 17D.

I was another chimney-potter, and I (wishful thinking) thought I had actually found an organ pipe connection. 19D ALEXEI, obtained from the word play led to 2D ANNA KARENINA and the rest of the Tolstoy lights. But was finally stumped by 1D and 11A. Re SHIRAZ, I was looking for (hair s e)* since I interpreted “closer to” as (erogenou)S and (zon)E…usual problem I have with things like Z=zone (I would have got, eg. Z=zulu)

There were many good clues, favourites being 12A LOUIS D’OR, liked “for”=”f-or”=LOUD OR, 10D PRINCE REGENT, a pleasure to parse,and 13D FOG SIGNAL, a great surface reading.

Thanks for the blog, beermagnet. Esp for a weekend puzzle research may be needed, even having read the books I’d not have remembered all the characters’ names, esp as they are Russian names that would not be familiar.

Eileen, I too was flummoxed by the wordplay for 12 ac. I’ve realized that, with Anax especially, one has to separate mentally the pairs of words that form a unit – Home Guard, erogenous zones – but splitting a short word into its component letters is something else entirely!

Polly, looks like you got your wish…

Just as I think I’m beginning to get used to his tricks, he pulls another one – 12ac was fiendish!

Last in was 11ac, which made me laugh out loud – [and also say, 'Why didn't I see it earlier?' - the construction was impeccable but I just didn't see the definition for ages].

Many thanks, Anax, for a lot of fun and beermagnet for a great blog.