FIRST CROSSWORD PUZZLE

Although there were several precursors, usually the title of the first crossword puzzle is given to a puzzle published in the New York World on 21 December 1913 (see image on the right). It was created by Arthur Wynne.

MOST PROLIFIC AUTHOR

The most prolific corssword compiler is Roger Squires (UK). He has published more than 74,000 crosswords with more than 2 million clues. His puzzles have appeared in 592 outlets in 33 countries.

MOST PROLIFIC AUTHOR OF CROSSWORDS RELATING TO ONE TOPIC

Ieuan Llewellyn (also known as Thomas Trickett, UK) started compiling crosswords on one subject (football) alone in 1992.
He started of with AFC Bournemouth and later compiled crosswords for 60 to 80% of the English professional and amateur leagues.

Ieuan Llewellyn supplied the matchday programmes for 12 years each Saturday at English grounds so crowds so  a 1/2 of million people would see the grids every Saturday. He worked seven days a week for the Daily Sport (a UK national newspaper which had up to 1/2 million readers a day) for 7 years supplying a soccer crossword each day (including Sundays). Llewellyn compiled five books, and sold over 75,000 copies of his first book Football, Football, Football Crosswords and 40,000 of the second one called Soccer, Soccer, Soccer. Later he compiled books with crossword puzzles related to one club alone for Liverpool FC and another one for Manchester United. Thomas Trickett retired in 2007.

OLDEST CROSSWORD AUTHOR

The oldest author of a published crossword was Bernice Gordon. Her last puzzle was published in the Los Angeles Times on 2 December 2014 when she was 100 years 10 months and 21 days old. She celebrated her 100th birthday by publishing a crossword in the New York Times.

LARGEST CROSSWORD WITHOUT SHADED SQUARES

Iin June 2010, Claude Coutanceau was able to construct a 9x9 French crossword without any black square. DETAILS

RECORS FOR NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORDS

Several Records for New York Times crosswords can be found at www.xwordinfo.com.
These statistics include the record for the fewest shaded squares in a 15x15 crossword (17 by Joe Krozel in the New York Times of 27 July 2012) and The lowest numberof words in a  15x15 crossword (50 words by Joe Krozel in the New York Times on 29 June 2013)

LARGEST CROSSWORD BY PHYSICAL SIZE

 Jean Rossat (France) presented a crossword measuring 3150 sq metres on 31 May 1991 at the crosswords festival in Is-sur-Tille (France).

THE LARGEST CROSSWORDS

squares	clues	language	author, where published
320,500	91,000		Abdul-Karim Qasem (Yemen), unpublished (not yet confirmed)
172,000	>50,000	French	Thierry Robin, compiled 2004/05, measures 4.30 m x 0.29 m  (not yet confirmed)
160,650	64,908	Japanese	constructed by the PR agency Dentsu Inc.,Tokyo for Daiichi Sankyo Healthcare Co., 29 August 2012 published online
160,000	50,139	French	Didier Clerc and Pierre-Claude Singer (France)
	64,371	Russian	Svetlana and Semion Belyaev (Russia), measures 6 m x 8 m, construction took seven years, unpublished (not yet confirmed)
	63,500		Sergej Sacharov (Turkmenistan), 1997 (not yet confirmed)
160,000	61,401	German	Walter Kellner (Austria), completed in November 2008 after 20 years of work, measures 12 m x 1 m, unpublished
	60,000	Russian	Yevgeny Vorobchenko (Russia) in 2005, thematic crossword (topic: 60th anniversary of the end of World War II), 21 m long  (not yet confirmed)
	50,400		Roger Bouckaert (Belgium) compiled 1984-1988, measures 32.82 m x 0.53 m,unpublished
132,020	25,970		Ara Hovhannisian (Armenia), compiled November 2007 to October 2008
120,000	37,382	Arabic	Larbi Ouazbir (Maroc), 2005 unpublished (not yet confirmed)
>91,000	28,000	English	published in a box by Herbko
	27,395		Jan Kubicki (Germany), 1989
82,951	26,614		Robert Trucot (Canada), July 1982, measured 3.55 sq m
	22,223		Jean-Pierre Hoorens and Romain Vermeersch and Albert Carlier (Belgium), published by the publisher Atlas
	20,380	Dutch	H. C. de Waard (Netherlands), compiled 1981/82
80,000	20,000	German	Eberhard Krüger (Germany), published in a book (available at amazon.de)
57,384	13,556	German	Peter Bender (Germany), 1981 (not yet confirmed)
55,080	20,520	German	Arne Meyer-Oldenburg (Germany), 42.12 m long
50,000	18,000	French	Guy Brouty and Jean Louise (France)
50,000		French	Roger La Ferté (France), unpublished
43,500	21,417	German	Werner Schmidt (Germany), unpublished
41,750	16,000	Serbo-Croatian	Puzzle Club Bjelovar (Yugoslavia) 1985 (not yet confirmed)
	12,308	English	Stephen Robinson, published by Onsworld Ltd, Stamford on 22 October 1979, measured 1.72 sq metres
	10,943	English	Marvid Ryder (Canada), published in the newspaper Courier Press in Wallaceberg (Canada) on 28 March 1979 at 1.7 sq metres
31,605	10,226	French	Albert Gillet (Belgium), was published
30,000		French	Jean-Yves Laisné (France) published online
26,520			Daud Sultana (Syria), 1987, thematic crossword (topic: Syria) (not yet confirmed)
25,633		Romanian	Alex Toth (Romania), measures 4.5 m x 2.7 m (not yet confirmed)
25,000	7,748		Henri Blaise (Belgium), compiled in eight years, 1.76 sq metres
22,550	7,317	French	Edmond Guigues (France), 1989
20,400	6,086	French	Jacky Hup (France), measured 2.88 m x 1.05 m
16,800	5,200	French	presented in Is-sur-Tille (France) in 1990, measuring 14 m x 12 m (not yet confirmed)
	6,334	English	Robert M. Stilgenbauer (USA), constructed in 7 years, published as a booklet in 1949 by Things Original, Los Angeles
	5,553	English	Hank Koval (USA), size 1.54 sq metres, published by Prince/Stern/Sloan Publishers Inc., Los Angeles
	3,616	English	Yarlagadda Polic (India) PHOTO
	3,600	Marathi	Milind Shintre (India), 2009-10
10,150	3,392	French	Sylvain Marcadier (France), published in Les Charentes libres in February 1985
9,000	3,000	Italian	Claudio Sabelli Fioretti and Lucio Bucella (Italy), published in the Italian journal Panorama, No. 784-786
6,000		French	published in Le Pèlerin Magazine 27 November 1997
5,329		English	73x73 grid, several crosswords of this size were published by First Features Ltd, Hastings in the 1970's
3,600		French	Yvas Pirat (France), published in Les Dépêches

LONGEST WORDS IN A CROSSWORD PUZZLE

The list below contains only words that are (or have been) actuelly in use. Even longer "constructed" words appeared in German and Dutch language crosswords.

58	Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (Welsh)	Roger Squires (UK), July 1979 edition of the Telford Wrekin News
42	Rijksluchtvaartdienstweerschepenpersoneel (Dutch)	A. van Dun (Netherlands), published in the journal Panorama
36	Kraftfahrzeughaftpflichtversicherung (German)	Ralf Laue (Germany), published in the newspaper Wir in Leipzig
29	Arondissementsschzoolopziener (Dutch)
28	honorificabilitudinitatibus (medieval Latin)	Edward Akenhead, 1971 in The Times