A crostic is a variety of word puzzle. In a crostic, a quotation is anagrammed into a set of otherwise unrelated words.

A grid is provided for the quotation (one letter per square, black squares between words, and with words wrapping around the ends of rows). The words are clued, and the correspondence between the letters in the words and the letters in the quotation is provided.

Usually, punctuation in the quotation is ignored, but sometimes hyphens, apostrophes, and perhaps other punctuation is included in the quotation grid and simply ignored for the purpose of the anagram. Punctuation in the answers is handled in usual crossword style (it is ignored, but sometimes its presence is indicated along with the clue).

Also, the first letters of the answer words in this sort of puzzle (or, in some variants, the first letters followed by the last letters) usually spell the author and name of the work quoted.

Unfortunately, these puzzles seem to have as many different names as there are different places they are published. Double Cross, Double Crostic, Acrostic, Anacrostic, and other similar names all refer to this puzzle. However, acrostic also refers to another, simpler acrostic puzzle without the quotation, so I've chosen this simplest alternate name for this node.