Good afternoon from Hoxton Square, and many thanks to all those of you who’ve kept us on our toes with subscriptions, renewals and book orders in the last few weeks. We’re much obliged as the office is now looking spick and span and ready for the arrival of the spring quarter’s offerings in a few weeks’ time. But before we leap forward to the new season we’re taking a look down the backlist, for last month’s shelf-shuffling activities have revealed that we’re down to our last binders’ parcel of Slightly Foxed Edition No. 22, Country Boy by Richard Hillyer.
Richard Hillyer was the pseudonym used by Charles Stranks, a farmworker’s son who grew up in great poverty in a remote Buckinghamshire village in the years before the First World War. In this extraordinary and moving story Hillyer describes how, against all the odds, he discovers a love of reading, manages to educate himself and get to university. Country Boy has been a firm favourite with readers over the years, and copies of our handsome edition have been steadily slipping off the shelves without fanfare. Now, as it nears the end of its time on the SF list, we thought we’d send if off in style with an extract.
We do hope you enjoy reading it. If you do and are tempted to add this book to your collection, now’s the moment.
With best wishes from the SF office staff,
Jennie, Anna, Hattie and Helen
PS Before we go off to Byfield, a note to those romantically inclined readers who like to mark the Feast of Saint Valentine. You may be interested to know that the foxes of Hoxton are able to wrap subscriptions, books and other goods in handsome brown paper parcels with signature cream ribbon, hand-write personal notes (with barely a blush) and whisk them off to loved ones in the UK in time for 14 February. And for overseas readers, we can e-deliver a gift card bearing a charming wood engraving, followed by the real things in due course. A few suggestions appear following the extract. Read on!