The New York Times Daily Crossword Puzzles

The New York Times Daily Crossword Puzzles refers to a long-running series of puzzle collections drawn from the daily crossword pages of The New York Times. The books contain carefully edited crosswords designed for solvers who enjoy vocabulary, general knowledge, wordplay, and progressively harder challenges. Individual volumes vary by year, day of the week, number of puzzles, and publisher. Eugene T. Maleska served as The New York Times crossword editor from 1977 to 1993. Many older collections credit the newspaper as author and Maleska as editor, rather than as the puzzles’ sole creator; the puzzles were constructed by numerous crossword setters and selected or edited for publication. The 1990 New York Times Daily Crossword Puzzles, Volume 35, for example, was published by Random House Information Group, contains 50 puzzles, and runs to 64 pages. Later themed collections divided puzzles by weekday. These editions use the traditional difficulty progression: Monday is generally easiest, with the challenge increasing through Saturday; Sunday puzzles are typically larger and often have a theme.