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Another Self | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

Another Self | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

James Lees-Milne wrote that he ‘always felt an outsider in every circle’. It was this, combined with his eye for detail and highly developed sense of the ridiculous, that made him such a wonderful comic writer. John Betjeman compared the impact of Another Self to that of Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall. We’re delighted to announce that this classic memoir will be available to readers once more, published on 1 June in a Plain Foxed Edition. These sturdy little books, bound in duck-egg blue cloth, come in the same neat pocket format as the original Slightly Foxed Editions. Please do go forth and place your order now.
Z is for Zola, Émile | From the Slightly Foxed archives

Z is for Zola, Émile | From the Slightly Foxed archives

Greetings from Hoxton Square, where we can scarcely believe we’ve come to the end of our alphabetical adventures through the Slightly Foxed archives, arriving at Andrew Wall’s piece on The Ladies’ Paradise by Émile Zola. We do hope you’ll enjoy it. It’s been a joy to delve into back issues and revisit old favourites, from Margery Allingham’s crime fiction to consumer culture with Émile Zola, via Barbara Comyns, Graham Greene, Molly Keane, Marilynne Robinson, Kurt Vonnegut and many more along the way. And we have barely burrowed into the archive of hidden gems: eighteen years’ worth of entertaining and original reading recommendations, good humour and good writing.
A Boy at the Hogarth Press | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

A Boy at the Hogarth Press | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

There have been many memoirs of life among the Bloomsberries, but none more wickedly frank or funny than Richard Kennedy’s A Boy at the Hogarth Press. In 1926, at the age of 16, Richard Kennedy left school without a single qualification and went to work at Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press. Though home from home for London’s intellectual élite, the Press’s damp basement at Tavistock Square was anything but elegant, with the legendarily mean LW keeping a close check on everything, including the toilet paper, and frequently exploding when confronted with RK’s latest idiocy. The Woolfs clearly developed a fondness for their apprentice, but when he left several years later LW pronounced him ‘the most frightful idiot he [had] ever had the privilege of meeting in a long career of suffering fools’.
Now that spring has come . . . | Seasonal reading from Slightly Foxed

Now that spring has come . . . | Seasonal reading from Slightly Foxed

Greetings from Hoxton Square, where we’re looking forward to the Easter break next week and the prospect of fresh air, feasting and, most importantly, time to read. Therefore, if you would like to give the gift of good reading to a fellow booklover (or yourself!) in time for the long weekend, we suggest placing your order in the coming days. The office will be closed from 5.30 p.m. Thursday 14 April until 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday 19 April for Easter. However, our online shop will be open all hours as always, so do feel free to order books, invest in a literary bundle, pick up a tote bag, acquire a notebook, stock up on bookplates, renew your subscription – or, indeed, take out a new subscription – while we’re away, and we’ll send out all orders as soon as we’re back at the packing desk.
Inspire a love of reading | Slightly Foxed Cubs

Inspire a love of reading | Slightly Foxed Cubs

Today, 2 April, is both Hans Christian Andersen’s birthday and International Children’s Book Day, which is celebrated each year to inspire a love of reading and to call attention to children’s literature. Not that we need an excuse to do so here at SF HQ, of course. However, we thought it only fitting to shine the spotlight on our series of Slightly Foxed Cubs this weekend. These beautifully produced collectable children’s books strike a nostalgic chord with many older readers and introduce a younger generation to writers whose marvellous books have, unaccountably, been allowed to slip out of print. Bound in coloured cloth, with printed endpapers and original illustrations, the Cubs make ideal presents for the young and young at heart. Whether you wish to escape into nature with BB, venture back to Roman Britain with Rosemary Sutcliff, join up the dots of history with Ronald Welch or begin to build a library for a bookworm by picking a few titles by each author (or collecting the full set at once) we have books, bundles and offers to satisfy all readers and occasions.
Jan Morris | Conundrum | Rescued – a grand love

Jan Morris | Conundrum | Rescued – a grand love

‘Conundrum is the nearest thing Jan has written to an autobiography. But as she herself acknowledges, in a sense all her writing is autobiographical. Her books represent conversations between Jan Morris and the places she is writing about. Her approach is wholly subjective, and it is hardly an exaggeration to say that she has imposed her personality on the entire world. Yet Conundrum is indeed unique among her books.’ Derek Johns in his preface to Slightly Foxed Edition No. 46: Jan Morris, Conundrum
‘She was an artist, a light-giver and an original’ | Slightly Foxed gift ideas

‘She was an artist, a light-giver and an original’ | Slightly Foxed gift ideas

With Mothering Sunday approaching we thought some of you may appreciate a few bookish gift ideas for the mother figures in your lives – or for any fellow booklover or, indeed, yourself! All items can be wrapped in handsome brown paper, tied up with our cream ribbon and sent directly to recipient, or to you to hand over in person. If you’re worried about delivery times, or if you’re cutting it a little fine when placing your order, you can also choose to have an instant gift card sent to you to print out at home or sent straight to the recipient by email.
Portrait of Elmbury | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

Portrait of Elmbury | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

‘I have written a book which gives me much pleasure. It is a kind of full-length portrait of a small country town between the wars. The sort of life that will never come back,’ John Moore wrote to T. H. White in the summer of 1945. That book was Portrait of Elmbury, and we’re delighted to announce that it’s now available to readers again, published in a cloth-bound hardback Plain Foxed Edition. These sturdy little books, bound in duck-egg blue cloth, come in the same neat pocket format as the original SF Editions. Portrait of Elmbury is the first volume in the trilogy based on his home town that Moore wrote shortly after the Second World War, following it in 1946 with Brensham Village and in 1948 with The Blue Field.
‘Slightly Foxed is among the special, cherished delights of each season’ | New this spring

‘Slightly Foxed is among the special, cherished delights of each season’ | New this spring

Greetings, dear readers. We’re delighted to announce that the new Spring issue of Slightly Foxed (No. 73) has now left the printing press at Smith Settle and will start to arrive with readers in the UK very soon and elsewhere over the next few weeks. It ranges far and wide in the usual eclectic manner: Daisy Hay goes for a walk in Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire • Chris Saunders considers the art of bookselling with Penelope Fitzgerald • Suzi Feay enters the strange world of Arthur Machen • Tim Pears salutes a Bosnian chronicler • Daisy Dunn visits ancient Greece with Mary Renault • Gustav Temple is unnerved by Patricia Highsmith, and much more besides . . . We hope it will provide plenty of recommendations for reading off the beaten track this spring. With it, as usual, you’ll find a copy of our latest Readers’ Catalogue, detailing new books, our backlist, recommended seasonal reading and a selection of offers and bundles.
Lark Rise | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

Lark Rise | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves

Introducing the latest addition to the Slightly Foxed Editions list, No. 58: Flora Thompson, Lark Rise, published 1 March. Lark Rise – and its sequels Over to Candleford and Candleford Green – must be some of the best loved books ever written. They are unique both for the magical quality of the writing and for the background of their author. While most other countryside writers of the period were comfortably middle-class, this record of a vanishing world came from the daughter of a builder’s labourer.
Still Life: Sketches from a Tunbridge Wells Childhood | Richard Cobb

Still Life: Sketches from a Tunbridge Wells Childhood | Richard Cobb

In Still Life, Richard Cobb recreates the small world of Tunbridge Wells in entrancing detail as he experienced it between the ages of 4 and 13. He leads us through the town and into the lives of the characters among whom he grew up, from the mysterious Black Widow to Baroness Olga, the town’s only victim of the Russian Revolution. At home his mother entertains her tweed-and-Jaeger-clad Bridge-playing friends while down the road in their large, dank Victorian mansion his extraordinary cousins the Limbury-Buses live their lives according to an unchanging regime of walks, rests and meals which are timed to the minute. ‘Strange and wonderful,’ wrote Hilary Spurling in the Observer when the book was first published. And indeed it is.
Collectable Classic Children’s Books | Slightly Foxed Cubs

Collectable Classic Children’s Books | Slightly Foxed Cubs

Ronald Welch’s Carey novels follow the fortunes of the same family from their involvement in the Crusades to their service in the First World War. Grippingly plotted and scrupulously researched, together they join up the dots of English history in a remarkably vivid and human way. Tomorrow marks forty years since Ronald Welch’s death and, as befits a man who held such reverence for dates, we’re commemorating this anniversary and celebrating his wonderful books. He certainly knew how to bring history alive for younger readers. You can’t finish a Welch book without having grasped such precise details as the construction of a crusader’s armour and why it was so designed, or why the longbow was crucial to the English victory at the Battle of Crécy. Most importantly they’re brilliant reads – fast-paced, colourful and imaginative, with entirely believable central characters.
Literary Gifts for Saint Valentine’s Day & Other Occasions

Literary Gifts for Saint Valentine’s Day & Other Occasions

‘I can neither eat nor sleep for thinking of you my dearest love. I never touch even pudding you know the reason.’ Nelson to Emma Hamilton Greetings from Hoxton Square, where the office is looking spick and span and ready for the arrival of the spring quarter’s offerings in a few weeks’ time. However, before we look ahead to the new season, another occasion is on the horizon. For those romantically inclined readers who might have Saint Valentine’s Day in mind, please find a selection of gift ideas below. Eating and sleeping may be off the menu for the love-struck but reading is always an option. We’re able to wrap subscriptions, books and other goods in handsome brown paper with signature cream ribbon and handwritten personal notes and whisk them off to loved ones in the UK in time for 14 February (or, indeed, any other occasion). And for overseas recipients, we can e-deliver a gift card bearing a charming wood engraving, followed by the gift in due course.
‘This winter will be remembered for very many years’ | Letters to Michael

‘This winter will be remembered for very many years’ | Letters to Michael

Warm wishes from Hoxton Square, where we’re bracing ourselves for a cold snap in this corner of the world. With a forecast of snowfall and gales, Arctic blasts and freezing fog here in the UK, we’re inclined to batten down the hatches and settle down with a good book. And we have just the antidote to bad weather and troubled times. Between the spring of 1945 and the autumn of 1947 Charles Phillipson wrote a series of 150 illustrated letters to his young son Michael. Now these delightful, quirky letters, designed to whet Michael’s appetite for reading, have been gathered together in Letters to Michael. This charming cloth-bound hardback edition is full of the lightness and humour Charles found in everyday situations.
Tiger the Literary Lion | Ghosting: A Double Life

Tiger the Literary Lion | Ghosting: A Double Life

‘A large sapphire in the lapel of a bold striped suit, a vivid silk tie so bright that it dazzles . . . and on his fingers a collection of jewels: rubies, emeralds, diamonds . . .’ This is the man Jennie Erdal calls ‘Tiger’, the flamboyant figure at the centre of Ghosting, the strange and gripping story of the twenty years in which she became his ghost writer, pulling the wool over the eyes of reviewers and turning him into the literary lion he had always wanted to be. Greetings from No. 53 where we’ve been busy with subscriptions, renewals and book orders thanks to those of you who’ve been adding to your reading lists for 2022. Another recommendation for your to-be-read pile comes courtesy of Slightly Foxed editor Hazel, who wrote the preface to our edition of Jennie Erdal’s wickedly funny memoir, Ghosting.

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