What excellent company you are!

I have been devoted to your podcast for over a year; it could be improved only by being more frequent. Every book I have ordered from you has been a delight; nothing disappoints. I receive your emails with pleasure, and that’s saying a lot. Slightly Foxed is a source of content . . .
K. Nichols, Washington, USA

Popular categories

Explore our library

Edwardian It Girl

Edwardian It Girl

‘The small material objects that surround one’s daily life have always influenced me deeply,’ wrote E. (Edith) Nesbit in her memoir Long Ago When I Was Young. In my mother’s old nursery were several such objects – a doll’s crib, a triangular book cupboard made by my great grandfather – but the smallest and most influential was a smiling Buddha-shaped figurine: Billikin, God of Things as They Ought to Be. Every Christmas we went to see Peter Pan at the Scala Theatre in London, a faithful restaging of the original Edwardian production, and the second major influence in this fanciful child’s life. For if things really were As They Ought to Be, fairies and adventure would surely follow. It was inevitable, then, that of all the children’s books I loved, E. Nesbit’s magic trilogy, Five Children and It, The Phoenix and the Carpet and The Story of the Amulet, would take precedence over her more famous The Railway Children or The Story of the Treasure Seekers.
SF magazine subscribers only
13th October 2014

‘The pieces are an excellent length . . .’

'True story: I was rattling in on Thames Link from Luton airport and my Easyjet flight from Inverness when a woman of a certain age – OK my age, maybe a year or two older – got in at somewhere like Harpenden. Greying, lightly tanned (the garden in France, I expect), sensible shoes, firm step and firm jaw . . . 50 years ago she would have been the vicar’s wife, now of course of ‘someone in the City.’ Only at Finchley Road did I notice she was reading the Autumn issue. And very engrossed too. At King’s Cross, she closed it (the pieces are an excellent length for such journeys), gazed with firm (again) satisfaction at the cover and then put it away in her (sensible) handbag. There you go!’
- P. Gill, London
From readers
13th October 2014

‘A club of discerning and eager book lovers . . .’

‘It is true to say when you subscribe to Slightly Foxed you do not just buy a ‘Literary Magazine’ you also join a Club. A Club of discerning and eager book lovers whose appetites are whetted but never completely assuaged by devouring the pages and ordering books not always read previously. The Autumn issue has just arrived. There is no need to disguise it. My wife knows her life would not be worth living if she tried to read it first.’
- J. Curtiss, Hampshire
From readers
13th October 2014

‘One wants to go out and buy book after book . . .’

‘Dennis Silk deserves a gold medal for writing about Sheila Stewart’s little gem of a masterpiece Lifting the Latch. The pleasure I have derived from reading this, at times heart wrenching tale is almost beyond description. The only drawback to subscribing to Slightly Foxed is that one wants to go out and buy book after book, having had the appetite whetted from reading yet another fascinating article about a previously unknown author or book. If, as seems to lie the case, you are going from strength to strength, it is surely richly deserved.'
- A. Verdie, Surrey
From readers

Sign up to our e-newsletter

Sign up for dispatches about new issues, books and podcast episodes, highlights from the archive, events, special offers and giveaways.