Sue Gaisford | Contributors to Slightly Foxed literary review magazine

Sue Gaisford began reviewing books for The Economist and has since written for many other publications. She currently reviews for the Financial Times and is on the judging panel for the annual Authors’ Club Best First Novel Award.

The numbers in square brackets refer to the issue of the quarterly in which the article appears.
The unbracketed numbers refer to the starting page of the article.
For entries in multiple issues of the quarterly, the occurrences are separated by semi-colons.

articles by, [50] 43; [59] 68; [60] 46; [63] 33

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The Sound of Chariots

Sue Gaisford on the Roman Britain novels of Rosemary Sutcliff

Rosemary Sutcliff knew about chariots. In the first of her four Roman books, The Eagle of the Ninth (1954), her young hero, the centurion Marcus Flavius Aquila, politely suggests to his British friend Cradoc that the British are all charioteers. Cradoc replies (accurately): ‘The British can all drive after a fashion; not every one is a charioteer.’ Marcus, however, is the real thing, the best in his Legion. Elegantly he slaloms Cradoc’s four strong little black stallions through planted spears, and then, reaching open land, he gives them their heads and they are off, at full gallop.

1 Sep 2019

Incorrigible and Irresistible

Sue Gaisford on the letters of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester

On our course we were studying Rochester, as published in the Muses Library edition, and while we were certainly impressed by the rage and ingenuity of his satires, most of us had fallen slightly in love with the limpid beauty of his lyrics – especially ‘Absent from thee I languish still’ and ‘All my past life is mine no more’. It was a little mysterious that this early collection should be kept under lock and key but, as I was briskly informed, this was an unexpurgated and obscene book, definitely not suitable for impressionable undergraduates. And, actually, would I go away now and only come back with written permission from my tutor? That is, if I really needed to return.

1 Dec 2018

Front Lines

Sue Gaisford on H. H. Asquith, Letters to Venetia Stanley & Raymond Asquith, Life and Letters

The Prime Minister was blazingly indiscreet, prefacing the most vital secrets of military strategy with such remarks as ‘this is rather private’ and reminding her not to leave the letter lying on the hall table. And his thumbnail sketches of his colleagues are wickedly enjoyable: arguing with Churchill, he wrote, was like arguing with a brass band, but even that was preferable to listening to his eloquence. But Asquith did not write to his son.

1 Sep 2018

Gateway to the East

Sue Gaisford on Christopher South, The Authorised Guide to Grunty Fen

Grunty Fen has long been a source of mystery. For years it lurked in the dusty lumber-room of memory, unvisited and all but forgotten, its faint miasma lingering slightly, if unpleasantly, until all that was left was the name, only the name. Like Adelstrop, you might think, as immortalized by Edward Thomas; though until recently, all the two places had in common was that once, long ago and for a short time only, each boasted a small, branch-line railway station.

1 Jun 2016

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