| BEHN | Author of Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave; one of the first English women to earn a living as a profes |
| MARYSIDNEY | One of the first English women to achieve a reputation for her poetry, sister of fellow poet and scholar Sir Philip (4,6) |
| SATIRIST | He scorns to earn a living as a writer |
| OROONOKO | Novel by Aphra Behn subtitled The History of the Royal Slave (8) |
| VALISE | "In that case a freed slave", one interposed (6) |
| NUTTY | "The _ Profes- sor"; 1996 Eddie Murphy film |
| BUSINESS | Profes-sion |
| MDS | Some health profes sionals (Abbr.) |
| ROBERT | Forename of either the polymath discoverer of the law of elasticity, the inventor of the Bunsen burner or the Royal Society co-founder regarded as the first modern chemist (6) |
| JOHNFLORIO | Author of the first English translation of Boccacio, and the first comprehensive Italian-English dictionary (1598) |
| FLYINGOFFICER | Junior commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force equivalent to a Lieutenant in the British Army or the Royal Marines |
| MEL | - - - Deane, ex-Quins, Sale and Connacht centre now earning a living as a personal trainer (3) |
| GHOST | Appearing to the living as a pale, shadowy apparition of the dead / a haunting memory |
| THOUGHTFORFOOD | Earned a living as a philosopher? |
| STOWONTHEWOLD | Gloucestershire town, site of the final battle of the first English Civil War (4-2-3-4) |
| ARTEL | Worker cooperative in Russia and the former Soviet Union, often made up of peasants living as a commune (5) |
| APHRA | Author of works including The Rover (play, 1677) and Oroonoko (novel, 1688), considered to have been England's first professional female writer (5,4) |
| HANDS | Sets of 13 cards held by players in bridge; pointers on the faces of clocks/ watches; or, the Royal Shakespeare Company artistic director 1986-91 (5) |
| EKE | Scratch out a living, as something of a peacekeeper (3) |
| NOMADS | State of living as a rover or wanderer (6) |
