Introduction

People love to do puzzles of all kinds; word squares, anagrams, number puzzles, riddles, conundrums, jigsaws and so on have entertained and educated people everywhere for thousands of years. And, since 1913, crosswords have held sway.

To anyone new to cryptic crosswords, delight may be rare! On first reading, cryptic crossword clues look like complete and utter gibberish (you call that a clue?!). However, cryptic crosswords conform to a set of rules and they can be solved. Honest!

About This Book

In this book I give you a brief introduction to cryptic crosswords and provide you with some tips on getting started with these puzzles, the basics of the most common cryptic clue devices, and some useful reference lists. However, the main content of this book is the collection of cryptic crosswords, 56 of them in total.

Foolish Assumptions

I haven’t made many assumptions in this book; the main one is that you have some interest in learning to solve cryptic crosswords! I do assume that you have a basic knowledge of grammar (understanding the difference between nouns and verbs, for example, and what plurals, synonyms and adjectives are). But that’s about it.

How This Book Is Organised

Cryptic Crossword Puzzles For Dummies is divided into three parts, as follows.

Part 1: The World of Cryptic Crosswords

This part consists of two chapters. The first chapter gives a basic introduction to cryptic crosswords in general, explains the terms and conventions used in crosswords, defines what makes up a cryptic clue, and gives a brief description of each of the main cryptic devices.

The next chapter provides you with some handy reference lists that are very useful when solving cryptic crosswords.

Part 2: Cryptic Crosswords

This part of the book has three chapters of cryptic crosswords for you to sink your teeth into! Chapter 3 has 25 easy cryptic crosswords, Chapter 4 has 18 medium cryptic crosswords, and Chapter 5 has 13 difficult cryptic crosswords.

If you’re keen to try more and learn more about solving cryptics, check out the companion volume to this book, Solving Cryptic Crosswords For Dummies, which contains in-depth information on solving cryptic crosswords, including how the different cryptic devices work, and more practice puzzles (with hints).

Part 3: The Answers

The part title gives it away, really! This part is a collection of the answers to the cryptics in Chapters 3, 4 and 5.

This book is written in Australian/British English. However, now and then you will see an American spelling in a clue, which was necessary for some wordplay or other to work.

Icons Used in This Book

As is standard with all For Dummies books, I use a set of icons to signpost a few special cases within the explanatory chapter. When you come across one of these icons, pay attention to the text next to it:

This marks a tip or a hint that you might find especially helpful when solving cryptic crosswords.

This icon helps you to remember a few critical elements about cryptics.

These warnings mark out places where getting tripped up is all too easy, as well as common areas of confusion.

Where to Go from Here

This book and the puzzles in it aren’t intended to be read or solved from front to back, in order. However, if you’re completely new to cryptics, I do recommend you read Chapter 1 first.

From there, each chapter in Part 2 will give you a particular cryptic crossword difficulty level to solve. If you’re experienced with cryptics, then dive straight into the hard crosswords in Chapter 5, or work your way up to them, starting with the easy puzzles in Chapter 3.