The magazine for people who love books

‘Slightly Foxed appears quarterly and reminds one, in elegantly crafted essays, of books that have been lost or ignored but which are still worth reading. Slightly Foxed cries out to be devoured the moment it drops through the letter box. It is beautifully designed and printed on gorgeous cream paper.’ – Alexander McCall Smith

Slightly Foxed Issue 84

The Magazine

Each issue of Slightly Foxed  magazine offers 96 pages of lively personal recommendations for books of lasting interest – books, including fiction and non-fiction, that have stood the test of time and have left their mark on the people who write about them. It’s an eclectic mix, and our contributors are an eclectic bunch too – some well-known, others not so, but all passionate about sharing their enthusiasm for a book or author.

In Issue 84: Norma Clarke enjoys the letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle • Samuel Saloway-Cooke joins Delia in the kitchen • Ysenda Maxtone Graham sympathizes with E. M. Delafield’s Provincial Lady • Robin Blake toughs it out with Simenon • Nigel Andrew remembers some stirring narrative verse • Flora Neville relishes the dark stories of Edward Gorey • Alex Woodcock learns his trade as a stonemason • Richard Smyth unpicks the art of the cryptic crossword • Adam Sisman has the last laugh with Lucky Jim • Felicity James remembers the world of John Updike’s Couples, and much more besides . . .

‘If you need a good gift for someone who loves to read – or if you love to read and want a little treat for yourself, check out the delightful Slightly Foxed. It’s a quarterly magazine with essays about books, not reviews, but personal recommendations. For people who read a lot, it can be hard to find new suggestions, and every time I read Slightly Foxed, I add several titles to my list.’
Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

Books

Slightly Foxed brings back forgotten voices through its Slightly Foxed Editions, a series of beautifully produced little hand-numbered pocket hardback reissues of classic memoirs, all of them absorbing and irresistibly collectable. The series includes memoirs by Edward Ardizzone, Roald Dahl, Gerald Durrell, Ysenda Maxtone Graham, Helene Hanff, Laurie Lee, James Lees-Milne, Hilary Mantel, Gavin Maxwell, Jessica Mitford, Graham Greene, Eric Newby, V. S. Pritchett, Anne Fadiman, Gwen Raverat, Dodie Smith, Rosemary Sutcliff and Joanna Rakoff among others. Once the initial run of 2,000 copies of each title has sold out, the most popular of the SF Editions are then reissued as unnumbered (but still collectable) Plain Foxed Editions bound in a handsome duck-egg blue cloth.

For younger bookworms – and nostalgic older ones too – there’s the Slightly Foxed Cubs series, in which we’ve so far reissued Ronald Welch’s outstanding – and long unavailable – historical novels, BB’s classic nature adventure stories for children and Rosemary Sutcliff’s well-loved Roman and post-Roman novels, in a handsome format with the original illustrations.

  • Slightly Foxed Editions

    Slightly Foxed Editions

    Slightly Foxed Editions is a series of beautifully produced little pocket hardback reissues of classic memoirs, all of them highly absorbing and irresistibly collectable.

    The series includes memoirs by Edward Ardizzone, Roald Dahl, Gerald Durrell, Graham Greene, Helene Hanff, Laurie Lee, Hilary Mantel, Jessica Mitford, Eric Newby, V. S. Pritchett, Gwen Raverat, Dodie Smith and Rosemary Sutcliff, among others.

  • Slightly Foxed Cubs

    Slightly Foxed Cubs

    For younger bookworms – and nostalgic older ones too – there’s the Slightly Foxed Cubs series, in which we’ve reissued Rosemary Sutcliff’s Roman novels, favourite titles by BB and a number of Ronald Welch’s outstanding series of historical novels, in a handsome format with the original illustrations.

  • Plain Foxed Editions

    Plain Foxed Editions

    Many of the most popular titles in our limited Slightly Foxed Editions series of classic memoirs have sold out, but we are now making a number of them available in a plainer, unnumbered hardback edition. These sturdy little books, bound in duck-egg blue cloth, come in the same neat pocket format as the original SFEs and will happily fill any gaps on your shelves, as well as forming a delightful uniform edition on their own.

  • The Readers’ Catalogue

    The Readers’ Catalogue

    In addition to listing all the books we publish here at Slightly Foxed, the quarterly printed Readers’ Catalogue (which goes out to subscribers with each new issue of the quarterly) contains our pick of the best newly-published or recently-reissued titles from other publishers.

  • Seasonal & Special Releases

    Seasonal & Special Releases

    In addition to our range of memoirs, biographies and children’s books we have produced a few other seasonal books and other special releases over the years.

  • Goods

    Goods

    Whether you’re in search of a present for a bookish friend or relative, or a treat for yourself, Slightly Foxed offers a carefully chosen range of book-related merchandise, including notebooks, sturdy and good-looking book bags, cards, and bookplates.

‘A great present for those who love books.’

Financial Times

Et cetera

Welcome to our virtual kitchen table. Here you can read articles and extracts from the quarterly magazine and our books, catch up with newsletters, find out more about our writers and artists, use the online index to hunt down articles published in back issues and seek out books featured in the magazine, listen to episodes of our podcast, and much more besides.

  • Endless hours of pleasure | New this Winter from Slightly Foxed
    15 November 2024

    Endless hours of pleasure | New this Winter from Slightly Foxed

    Greetings, dear readers, from Hoxton Square. We’re delighted to report that the new winter issue of Slightly Foxed has now left the printing press at Smith Settle and should arrive with readers in the UK in the coming days, and elsewhere around the world over the next few weeks. We do hope it brings much reading pleasure. And for those of you who are on a repeat order to receive our new limited-edition memoir each quarter, your usual hand-numbered copy of Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield will be with you very soon.
    Read more
  • Diary of a Provincial Lady | *New* from the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
    7 November 2024

    Diary of a Provincial Lady | *New* from the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

    We’re in the drawing-room of an under-heated middle-class home, far from any city, on a chilly November day in 1929 and our diarist – the Provincial Lady of the title – is dealing with a bossy acquaintance. Lady Boxe, her neighbour from the local great house, is one of a cast of headache-inducing characters who inhabit this deathless diary, including Ethel the clumsy house-parlourmaid, and Cook, who has just announced that ‘something is wrong with the range’, the PL’s husband, unemotional and uncommunicative Robert, and her children, runny-nosed 6-year-old Vicky and 10-year-old Robin, home briefly from his prep-school and bringing a friend who is eating them out of house and home.
    Read more
  • Loafing by the Seine | From the Slightly Foxed Archives
    18 October 2024

    Loafing by the Seine | From the Slightly Foxed Archives

    ‘Sometimes, nostalgic for Paris, I read books about the city in the hope that through them I’ll know again the felt reality of daily life there.’ Greetings from Hoxton Square, where we have been travelling through the archives this week…
    Read more
  • ‘It’s quite easy really, Mr Eric,’ said Miss Webb, the stockkeeper of the Coat Department . . .
    11 October 2024

    ‘It’s quite easy really, Mr Eric,’ said Miss Webb, the stockkeeper of the Coat Department . . .

    Eric Newby was in his late twenties when he returned home in 1945 after an adventurous war. He had escaped from a prisoner-of-war camp in Italy and had fallen in love with his future wife Wanda. Back in London, however, demobbed and demoralized, he bowed to pressure and joined the family firm.
    Read more

The Slightly Foxed Podcast

Come behind the scenes with the staff of Slightly Foxed to learn what makes this unusual literary magazine tick, meet some of its varied friends and contributors, and hear their personal recommendations for favourite and often forgotten books that have helped, haunted, informed or entertained them.

From Readers & The Press

‘Thank you SF for all the pleasure you give . . .

. . . and if we ARE headed for Hell in a handcart, I hope it will be well-stocked with past issues of your life-enhancing magazine.’
S. Boswell, Suffolk

Birth of a Book

‘Slightly Foxed have stepped aside from the ebook stampede to publish beautifully bound hardbacks that recall a bygone age — and sell like hot cakes. Watch Smith Settle bookbinders near Leeds bring one of their hardback books to life. Mesmerising.’

Film shot by Glen Milner for The Telegraph.

Birth of a Book
Birth of a Book
Slightly Foxed Subscription Renewal

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We’re hard at work on upcoming issues which will be full of the usual entertaining writing and excellent recommendations for good reading. We do hope you’ll consider renewing and joining the SF club for another year – or two, or three! You can do so online by clicking the button below or by telephoning the office on +44 (0)20 7033 0258

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