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
R. G. G. Price, Betty Hope’s Survive with Me
Daphne’s Moment of Decadence • TIM HEALD
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
Elizabeth Taylor, At Mrs Lippincote’s
A Bit of a Bracer • VICTORIA NEUMARK
Frank & Anita Kermode (eds.), The Oxford Book of Letters
Bitter Fruit • HARRIET SERGEANT
Oswald Wynd, The Ginger Tree
Of Sex and Salmon • PATRICK EVANS
William Humphrey, The Spawning Run
Riding the Leopard • JOHN DE FALBE
On Harvill Press
Going Dutch • JUSTIN MAROZZI
Cees Nooteboom, Nomad’s Hotel; The Following Story
Cold Courage • CHRISTIAN TYLER
On the works of Jim Corbett
Cain’s Clan • JOHN HARRISON
People of Our Sort • LIZ ROBINSON
E. M. Delafield, The Diary of a Provincial Lady
An Unsettling Read • RUTH SYMES
E. M. Forster, A Passage to India
Mooring Lines • CHRISTOPHER SINCLAIR-STEVENSON
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.
- Wright, C. J.
- Wynd, Oswald
- Oxford Book of Letters
- Sinclair-Stevenson, Christopher
- Beowulf
- Stone, Humphrey & Solveig
- Bookshops and bookselling
- Symes, Ruth A.
- Harvill Press
- Taylor, Elizabeth
- Pirkis, Gail & Wood, Hazel
- Tyler, Christian
- Humphrey, William
- Leiper, Susan
- Kermode, Frank & Anita
- Candappa, Rohan
- Corbett, Jim
- De Falbe, John
- Delafield, E. M.
- Du Maurier, Daphne
- Evans, Patrick
- Fisher, M. F. K.
- Forster, E. M.
- Gardiner, Juliet
- Guiton, Shirley
- Gifford, Jane Lunzer
- Harrison, John
- Marozzi, Justin
- Heald, Tim
- Neumark, Victoria
- Nooteboom, Cees
- Price, R. G. G.
- Robinson, Liz
- Sergeant, Harriet
Slightly Foxed Issue 13: From the Editors
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...
Read moreFarringdon Station
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...
Read more‘I loved “Winning Through” in Slightly Foxed Issue 13 . . .’
‘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...
Read moreAn Unsettling Read
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...
Read moreWith Bold Knife and Fork
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...
Read morePure Arcadia
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....
Read moreWinning Through
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...
Read moreDaphne’s Moment of Decadence
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...
Read moreThere for the Duration
‘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...
Read moreA Bit of a Bracer
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...
Read moreBitter Fruit
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...
Read moreOf Sex and Salmon
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...
Read moreRiding the Leopard
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...
Read moreGoing Dutch
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...
Read moreCold Courage
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...
Read moreCain’s Clan
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...
Read morePeople of Our Sort
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....
Read moreThe Passing of a Bookseller
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...
Read more
