Between the Lines

The first crossword puzzle appeared December 21, 1913 in the FUN pages of The New York World, Pulitzer’s paper. It was the creation of Liverpool-born journalist, Arthur Wynne, originally called a word-cross but misprinted shortly after to its familiar form, an early victim to own imposition of anarchic plasticity onto language. With understated transatlantic modesty, Wynne claimed crosswords were as old as Pompei. Back home, old poet Housman would name these the “days when heaven was falling, / The hour when earth’s foundations fled.” The world would be at war half a year later.