| RASSELAS | Name by which Samuel Johnson's 1759 novel The Prince of Abissinia: A Tale is also known |
| TETTY | Name by which Samuel Johnson's wife Elizabeth Porter was known |
| ELOISATOABELARD | Alexander Pope poem which Samuel Johnson said “excelled every composition of the same kind” |
| PARMESAN | Type of cheese which Samuel Pepys buried in his garden during the Great Fire of London (8) |
| MARGARET | Author of the novel from which TV's The Handmaid's Tale is adapted, _ Atwood (8) |
| PANGLOSS | Professor in the 1759 novel Candide by Voltaire |
| VOLTAIRE | Author of 1759 novel Candide (8) |
| ALLEGORY | The symbolic tale is grisly after fifty tucked into beer (8) |
| MARKTWAIN | Pseudonym of the US author of the 1881 historical novel The Prince and the Pauper (4,5) |
| ILLUSORY | Difficult universal and timeless tale is deceptive (8) |
| SNEAKOFF | Slink away ___ the tell-tale is leaving (5,3) |
| FRANKLIN | Canterbury pilgrim with tale is outspoken, having left home (8) |
| FALLIBLE | Line 51 in Aesop tale is flawed (8) |
| DULWICH | Suburb of London to which Samuel Pickwick retires at the end of The Pickwick Papers |
| HODGE | A rustic or countryman; an actress in Rumpole of the Bailey and a television adaptation of Rosamunde Pilcher's The Shell Seekers; or, Samuel Johnson's most famous cat (5) |
| TWAIN | Mark, author of the novel The Prince and the Pauper (5) |
| ALERTED | We are made watchful when a tale is spread about Red infiltration (7) |
| TELL | Such a tale is revealing (4) |
| COACH | 2005 film, based on a true story, in which Samuel L Jackson plays the title role (5,6) |
| CARTER | 2005 film, based on a true story, in which Samuel L Jackson plays the title role (5,6) |
