Collins Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary

As and when you need to cheat at crosswords, Anne Bradford's "string and sealing wax" book (produced without a computer) still stands up very well against the ones produced mainly with the help of computers (most if not all of the rest). On a crossword discussion forum, Bradford's was recently compared with Chambers Crossword Dictionary by looking up the theme-words in the epic Listener 4000 puzzle. Bradford's had 19 of the 24 theme-words (8 each of battles, composers and coins), Chambers had just 13.

I was very disappointed with this book. The very first thing I wanted to look up was "4-letter reddish colours" but there wasn't a heading of "colours" so I tried "shades" but still with no luck. I then had to scour the entire index and eventually found it in the R's under Shades of red.

Likewise, Boys' Names are under F ?? Yes, they're under "First Names" !!

I now have an index full of my scribbles on where to find everything!!

i owned an old copy of this itle picked up at a boot sale, when i saw this advertised on amazon i could not wait to receive my copy, it fulfilled all my expectations. for any crucivebalist this is the holy grail, come on araucaria, paul, et al we can solve even the most difficult now. my only wish is that we could have an e-book please!!

I bought this not realising this was the gem version and have subsequently bought the full size version.

The full size version costs more but contains loads more definitions and word lists and is in my opinion much better value. The only reason I would buy this again, would be to have as a portable maybe.

Bradfords is my Bible, and I seem to tear apart every edition that comes out. It's an absolute godsend for helping me with the really difficult general knowledge clues. My only qualification is that the pages become loose very easily, so I have to resort to sellotape. A stronger binding on the spine would be appreciated!!!