Our twentieth anniversary year has been a predictably busy one for Slightly Foxed. To celebrate our tenth anniversary (can it really be that long ago?) we published a little book to raise funds for the school at Great Ormond Street Hospital. For this anniversary, as many of you will know, we’ve been running an online auction in aid of BookTrust, a splendid charity that works not only to make books available to children who might not otherwise have them, but also to make reading fun. Learning to decode words on a page is very different from becoming a lifelong reader. BookTrust encourages parents to read to their children and runs all kinds of activities to spark children’s long-term interest in books. It’s a cause that’s obviously very close to our hearts and we’re delighted to announce that this year’s auction has raised £13,250.
Very many thanks to all those who were able to help by taking part. We truly value the high degree of participation and support you give us. We love receiving your appreciative and interesting letters and emails, and it’s quite obvious from the number of people we meet who were introduced to SF via a gift subscription that you are also very good at spreading the word. In our experience it’s the most successful form of publicity, and if any of you would like to receive a small batch of leaflets to give to likely friends and relatives do please give the office a call or send us an email.
Our winter Slightly Foxed Edition is that evergreen comic hit Diary of a Provincial Lady by E. M. Delafield (see p.13). First published in instalments in Time and Tide and then in book form in 1930, it charts, with deadpan humour, the minor triumphs and major irritations in the life of an imaginary middle-class housewife struggling to keep up appearances in the straitened circumstances of the inter-war years. Chief among the irritations is bossy Lady Boxe from the Big House, whose husband employs the Provincial Lady’s deeply dull other-half Robert as his land agent. The PL’s whole domestic scene, which includes a son at prep school, a 6-year-old daughter and a trying French nanny, is wonderfully drawn and very funny, but there is poignancy beneath the comedy too.
And finally a reminder that with the recent publication of A Countryman’s Autumn Notebook we’ve completed our series of seasonal writings by Adrian Bell. These four little volumes, Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, selected by Richard Hawking with charming illustrations by Beth Knight, are now available as a set, with the optional addition of one of our smart grey slipcases. First published between 1950 and 1980 in the Eastern Daily Press, these brief, beautifully observed evocations of the Suffolk countryside and its people, by a man who lived and farmed there, give plenty of food for thought and make calming reading in today’s disturbing world. On which note we send you, as always, our best wishes for a peaceful Christmas, happy reading, and a hopeful New Year.
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