The
New Yorker published its first issue in 1925, amid what the writer Adrienne Raphel has described as a nationwide “crossword craze.” But more than seventy years passed before the magazine introduced a crossword puzzle—a British-style cryptic crossword, which was gone before the twenty-first century arrived.
Two decades later, the Puzzles & Games Dept. was born online. On the fewoccasions when these newcrosswords ran in print, the response was warm. “It is a special treat to be able to use a pen,” Barbara, from Colorado, wrote in to tell us; “I really enjoy the hard copy version,” Lauryl, from Massachusetts, enthused. Frostier were the letters when the puzzle didn’t return: “Why is there no crossword puzzle in the print magazine?? I’m very disappointed,” wrote Carla, from (where else?) New York.