Slightly Foxed Issue 13

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The independent-minded quarterly that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it’s more like a well-read friend than a literary magazine.

In this issue: Liz Robinson meets a provincial lady • Rohan Candappa heads for the bunker • Christian Tyler rides a tiger • Ruth Symes takes passage to India • Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson revisits Torcello • Patrick Evans casts a fly • Justin Marozzi goes Dutch • Harriet Sergeant admires a ginger tree • C. J. Wright mourns the passing of a bookseller • Humphrey & Solveig Stone find Arcadia, and much more besides . . .

Winning Through • ROHAN CANDAPPA on R. G. G. Price, Betty Hope’s Survive with Me

Daphne’s Moment of Decadence • TIM HEALD on Daphne du Maurier, The Parasites

With Bold Knife and Fork • JANE LUNZER GIFFORD on the writings of M. F. K. Fisher

Pure Arcadia • HUMPHREY AND SOLVEIG STONE on the writings of M. F. K. Fisher

There for the Duration • JULIET GARDINER on Elizabeth Taylor, At Mrs Lippincote’s

A Bit of a Bracer • VICTORIA NEUMARK on Frank & Anita Kermode (eds.), The Oxford Book of Letters

Bitter Fruit • HARRIET SERGEANT on Oswald Wynd, The Ginger Tree

Of Sex and Salmon • PATRICK EVANS on William Humphrey, The Spawning Run

Riding the Leopard • JOHN DE FALBE on Harvill Press

Going Dutch • JUSTIN MAROZZI on Cees Nooteboom, Nomad’s Hotel; The Following Story

Cold Courage • CHRISTIAN TYLER on the works of Jim Corbett

Cain’s Clan • JOHN HARRISON on Beowulf

People of Our Sort • LIZ ROBINSON on E. M. Delafield, The Diary of a Provincial Lady

An Unsettling Read • RUTH SYMES on E. M. Forster, A Passage to India

Mooring Lines • CHRISTOPHER SINCLAIR-STEVENSON on Shirley Guiton, No Magic Eden; A World by Itself

The Passing of a Bookseller • C. J. WRIGHT on the bookseller John Stephens

About Slightly Foxed

The independent-minded quarterly that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it’s more like a well-read friend than a literary magazine. Read more about Slightly Foxed.

Slightly Foxed Issue 13: From the Editors

Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood

Emerging from the miasma of winter colds and flu that hung over the office – even Pugwash was under the weather – we were immensely cheered by the splendid selection of Christmas cards you sent...

Farringdon Station

Sasa Marinkov

Before moving to Hoxton Square, the Foxed den was in Clerkenwell, and Farringdon was our local tube stop. This woodcut of the station by Sasa Marinkov was featured in Slightly Foxed Issue 13, in...

‘I loved “Winning Through” in Slightly Foxed Issue 13 . . .’

A. Verdie, Surrey

‘I loved “Winning Through” in Slightly Foxed Issue 13. It brought back memories of sleeping under the dining room table in 1940-42, just in case some German bomber got lost and loaded its bombs...

An Unsettling Read

Ruth Symes on E. M. Forster, A Passage to India

As the long flight plugged on through the night, Forster’s powerful descriptions of the scenery and climate of India beckoned me. I longed to feel the way the Asian heat ‘leapt forward’ hour by...

With Bold Knife and Fork

Jane Lunzer Gifford on the writings of M. F. K. Fisher

Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher did write exquisitely. She also wrote a vast amount, and one might fear indigestion on so hefty a diet of opinion, scathing contempt and passion for the many and varied...

Pure Arcadia

Humphrey and Solveig Stone on the writings of M. F. K. Fisher

I don’t really consider M. F. a cookery writer per se. She is a sort of food alchemist and is positively sensual about the pleasure of food. ‘I just wish my fellow countrymen were more relaxed....

Winning Through

Rohan Candappa on R. G. G. Price, Betty Hope’s Survive with Me

I was born on 26 January 1962 in a small upstairs bedroom at 8 Fairview Road, Norbury, South London. Towards the end of that year the world held its collective breath as, courtesy of the Cuban...

Daphne’s Moment of Decadence

Tim Heald on Daphne du Maurier, The Parasites

Du Maurier’s reputation seems, if possible, to grow with the years, not least because she is so difficult to pin down. Everyone, including Margaret Forster, her often uncomfortable official...

There for the Duration

Juliet Gardiner on Elizabeth Taylor, At Mrs Lippincote’s

‘It changed my life!’ people sometimes exclaim about a book. While I am fairly certain that has never happened to me, a book certainly changed my book. In the summer of 2004 I had finished...

A Bit of a Bracer

Victoria Neumark on Frank & Anita Kermode (eds.), Oxford Book of Letters

Recently I’ve started writing letters to prisoners (via the New Bridge Foundation). I can recommend it as a means to think about what we have in common with each other. The amount of trust – in...

Bitter Fruit

Harriet Sergeant on Oswald Wynd, The Ginger Tree

I was given The Ginger Tree, by Oswald Wynd, to read before the birth of my first child. ‘It will take your mind off things,’ said my friend. Indeed it did. Through all the dramas of a premature...

Of Sex and Salmon

Patrick Evans on William Humphrey, The Spawning Run

Sixty pages of non-fiction can take you to strange places. When I first read The Spawning Run, it was in armchair comfort, coolly anticipating the prospect of a literary march across sweet spring...

Riding the Leopard

John de Falbe on Harvill Press

The more you read, the more you realize you want to read, for each book generates a further reading list. Only occasional readers imagine that reading is a matter of working through a list of...

Going Dutch

Justin Marozzi on Cees Nooteboom, Nomad’s Hotel; The Following Story

We British like to think of ourselves as a cosmopolitan island race, outward-looking and worldly, yet we can be a parochial lot, too. We heap opprobrium on the Arab world for its failure to translate...

Cold Courage

Christian Tyler on the works of Jim Corbett

If pest control could win you medals for bravery, Jim Corbett would have won the VC. The citation would have read something like this: ‘Regardless of his own safety, he repeatedly exposed himself...

Cain’s Clan

John Harrison on Beowulf

The story of Beowulf is told in a little over 3,000 lines of poetry, written some time between the seventh and tenth centuries in Old English. The poet has a Christian viewpoint, just about, you...

People of Our Sort

Liz Robinson on E. M. Delafield, The Diary of a Provincial Lady

November 7th Plant the indoor bulbs. Just as I am in the middle of them, Lady Boxe calls. I say, untruthfully, how nice to see her, and beg her to sit down while I just finish the bulbs. Lady B....

The Passing of a Bookseller

C. J. Wright on the bookseller John Stephens

He was still looking for that last volume. If anyone could have found it, he could. That’s how good he was at his trade. As I stood at the graveside on a bright spring day, on that exposed ridge...