| METE | Yours truly starts to translate Esquire issue (4) |
| DEFAME | Slander, for yours truly, starts to fade away (6) |
| COLDTURKEY | A way to quit coke and truly start to detox perhaps (4,6) |
| HARVEST | A gathering storm truly starts after boxer claims victory (7) |
| OPERATE | Musical drama starts to translate Elgar work (7) |
| ZEALOT | Enthusiast starts to translate early Zola novel (6) |
| WINE | Press release perhaps in fragment from interview in Esquire (4) |
| MAGS | Elle and Esquire, for short |
| IDEN | Esquire in "Henry VI, Part 2" |
| ONUP | "Get ___" (1967 Esquires hit) |
| ITALIAN | I start to translate stranger lacking English but having a different language |
| HEROICCOUPLET | Courageous duo start to translate a bit of verse (6,7) |
| TERSE | Start to translate Gaelic using few words (5) |
| ALI | Cover subject of the April 1968 issue of Esquire |
| YONKERS | New York suburb, whose name comes from a Dutch equivalent to "esquire" |
| SANCHO | ------ Panza, esquire to Don Quixote (6) |
| LEEEISENBERG | American editor and author who was editor-in-chief of Esquire magazine throughout the 1970s and 1980s and founding editor of Esquire UK in 1990 |
| JAUNTY | Old "gentlemanly", but today's cheerful, chipper, dapper, dashing or debonair; or, with a rakish tilt to one's attire, in the manner of an esquire (6) |
| DANDER | 'H.M. --, Esquire (John P. Marquand novel)' |
| PULHAM | 'H.M. --, Esquire (John P. Marquand novel)' |
