Slightly Foxed Issue 6

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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: Dervla Murphy recalls an Anglo-Irish way of life • Clare Morrall takes off with Biggles • Derek Parker experiences verse and worse • Barnaby Rogerson travels hopefully • Colin Martin casts a fly • Malcolm Gluck becomes mittel-European • Peter Oborne hits a six • Sarah Anderson dives in at the deep end • Michele Hanson celebrates the parasite • John Keay meets a very big fish, and much more besides . . .

Taking the Plunge • SARAH ANDERSON on Roger Deakin, Waterlog

After the Death of the Masters • BARNABY ROGERSON on travel writing

A Modest Superhero • CLARE MORRALL on Captain W. E. Johns, the Biggles books

Feudal Afterglow • DERVLA MURPHY on David Thomson, Woodbrook

Hoodwinkery and Legerdemain • MALCOLM GLUCK on the novels of Stefan Zweig

A Positive View of Parasites • MICHELE HANSON on William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples; Ian & Jennifer Glynn, The Life and Death of Smallpox

On the Loose • MARY FLANAGAN on James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

Marxism and Cricket • PETER OBORNE on C. L. R. James, Beyond a Boundary

Casting a Spell • COLIN MARTIN on Gaylord Schanilec, Mayflies of the Driftless Region

Going West • ANNE SEBBA on Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

When Ethel Met Sidney • FRANCES WOOD on Ethel Lillian Voynich, The Gadfly

On Matters Mekong • JOHN KEAY on Alan Davidson, Fish and Fish Dishes of Laos

The Pick of the Pocket Editions • JOHN SAUMAREZ SMITH on World’s Classics

A Painterly Eye • NICHOLAS BAGNALL on the novels of Theodor Storm

No Whingeing! • C. J. DRIVER on Mary Bruce Grant, A Little Bush Maid

The Book Hound

Slightly Foxed’s Book Hound has run to earth a selection of interesting new fiction which may well get lost behind the piles of bestsellers

The Editor Regrets • DEREK PARKER on the Poetry Review

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 6: From the Editors

Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood

It’s a hopeful time of year. The stalwart London plane trees have unfurled their leaves, and the sun is rising higher behind the City domes, towers and spires that we can see from our now...

Taking the Plunge

Sarah Anderson on Roger Deakin, Waterlog

The notion of a long swim through Britain began in the pouring rain while Roger Deakin was swimming in his moat in Suffolk. The idea became an obsession and, inspired by John Cheever’s short story...

After the Death of the Masters

Barnaby Rogerson on travel writing

Last summer the two masters of travel writing, Norman Lewis and Wilfrid Thesiger, died within a month of each other. As Britain buried the last of her explorers and the best of her travel writers, it...

A Modest Superhero

Clare Morrall on Captain W. E. Johns, the Biggles books

I can’t remember the moment when I decided to allow Biggles some space in my new novel, but I imagine he just turned up one day, demanding attention. An ingrained loyalty to past escapism meant...

Feudal Afterglow

Dervla Murphy on David Thomson, Woodbrook

It is peculiarly exciting to turn a page and find a strong personal emotion exactly distilled – an emotion hitherto believed to be one’s private idiosyncrasy. Around the age of 13 most bookish...

Hoodwinkery and Legerdemain

Malcolm Gluck on the novels of Stefan Zweig

The one thing that five of the six Stefan Zweig books currently in print in Britain have most strikingly in common is not the author’s consistency of style but his photograph opposite the title...

A Positive View of Parasites

Michele Hanson on William H. McNeill, Plagues and Peoples; Ian & Jennifer Glynn, The Life and Death of Smallpox

A parasite is often to be admired for its ingenuity and persistence, even if it isn’t always attractive. A friend of mine once discovered a worm in his bed. It had come from his own body and had...

On the Loose

Mary Flanagan on James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room

To compensate for this structural flaw, I went to Athens and had the adventure I wanted to have. Then I nipped back to Rome, found a seedy pensione and holed up there until he arrived. For two days I...

Marxism and Cricket

Peter Oborne on C. L. R. James, Beyond a Boundary

Only one masterpiece has ever been written about the game: Beyond a Boundary, by the intellectual and political agitator C. L. R. James. It is a book that transcends all other books on the subject in...

Casting a Spell

Colin Martin on Gaylord Schanilec, Mayflies of the Drifted Region

Given that we’re talking in years, it is ironic that the book that stimulated this article deals with the most ephemeral entomological order, poetically described by Louis MacNeice as ‘One only...

Going West

Anne Sebba on Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

I am next to a businessman at a formal dinner. The conversation dries up after the soup. At a loss, I ask what sort of books he enjoys. Risky, I know. Either he won’t read, ‘except on planes when...

When Ethel Met Sidney

Frances Wood on Ethel Lillian Voynich, The Gadfly

I have always been interested in translations, for they can affect one nation’s view of another. Thanks to Charles Dickens, Sherlock Holmes and a weepy film called Waterloo Road, for most...

On Matters Mekong

John Keay on Alan Davidson, Fish and Fish Dishes of Laos

Scrolling idly through the SOAS Library’s subject catalogue, I must have brushed an unusual combination of keys, so activating a random function not mentioned on the options bar nor widely known to...

The Pick of the Pocket Editions

John Saumarez Smith on World’s Classics

For those like me who look out for, and sometimes even retain, useless knowledge, the first World’s Classic, published in 1901, was Jane Eyre; the last in the original pre-paperback series,...

A Painterly Eye

Nicholas Bagnall on the novels of Theodor Storm

I first discovered Theodor Storm about eight years ago when someone sent me a copy of The Dykemaster in an excellent translation by Denis Jackson. I say excellent, not because of its truth to the...

No Whingeing!

C. J. Driver on Mary Bruce Grant, A Little Bush Maid

A Little Bush Maid began as a serial, from newspaper articles which Minnie (as she was christened) Grant Bruce – a jobbing journalist in Melbourne – had contributed to the children’s page she...

The Editor Regrets

Derek Parker on the Poetry Review

Suddenly, out of the blue, one morning in December 1965, a letter arrived on the delightfully old-fashioned headed notepaper of the Poetry Society (‘Patron, Sir Compton Mackenzie, LL.D., F.R.S.L.,...