One of the most enjoyable things we do at Slightly Foxed – and there are many – is the commissioning of our covers. People often say they wish they could have reproductions of them, and so, in the spring, Alarys did some research, and we went off to visit a couple of small, environmentally friendly firms. One, in Lincolnshire, has now produced a lovely Slightly Foxed tea-towel for us in hard-wearing unbleached cotton decorated with one of our most cheerful spring covers, and the other, in Berkshire, a mixed pack of four fine-quality cards of the most popular ones – two with a spring and summer and two with a winter theme.
We do hope you’ll like these additions to our modest ‘merchandizing’ programme, and that they’ll come in handy when Christmas arrives. Likewise the two latest in our series of little Slightly Foxed Paperbacks – Rosemary Sutcliff’s Blue Remembered Hills, her vivid and unself-pitying account of how she grew up with a disability to become one of our best-loved children’s writers; and Corduroy, Adrian Bell’s classic picture of his life as a town boy working on a Suffolk farm between the wars.
We’ve embarked on another new experiment too this autumn – a Children’s Catalogue. As time goes by it can be hard, when giving presents or choosing books for the children in our lives, to know who the good new authors are, and which of the books we once loved are still available. If you’ve signed up for our adult catalogue, you will automatically receive this one. But if you haven’t and would like to receive either of them, do let us know. And do get in touch, too, if you’re interested in attending our second Slightly Foxed Reader’s Day in London on Saturday, 10 November, as we still have a handful of tickets left.
This season’s new Slightly Foxed Edition is Alan Moorehead’s A Late Education (see p. 13). Author of such bestselling books as The White Nile and Gallipoli, Moorehead was the perfect figure of the romantic writer and traveller, and a distinguished war correspondent in the Second World War. These vivid and haunting ‘Episodes in a Life’ describe his childhood in Melbourne, his apprenticeship as a journalist when he first arrived in Europe from Australia, and how, covering the war in the desert, he formed a close friendship with another young war correspondent, Alex Clifford, which lasted till Alex’s premature death.
And finally, the difficult bit. We’ve been sitting round the table recently, drinking a lot of coffee and talking about money. Over the past few years we’ve valiantly held down the price of SF through three rises in postal charges, but the most recent one feels like the proverbial last straw. Any price increase will be modest, but we thought we should warn you that we’re thinking about one. Meantime, we do so appreciate your loyalty, and hope that whatever happens you’ll still feel that the pleasure you get from Slightly Foxed is cheap at the price