Slightly Foxed Issue 65

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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: David Gilmour travels East with Somerset Maugham • Mary Helen Spooner attends an unusual cremation • Christopher Rush joins the revolution at Animal Farm • Felicity James relishes London life with the Lambs • Richard Platt spends a year on Cape Cod • Helen MacEwan watches Jeremy grow up • Alan Bradley meets some remarkable manuscripts • Rebecca Willis takes a dog’s-eye view • William Palmer shares the ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold • Isabel Lloyd admires a hardy perennial, and much more besides . . .

Asking the Right Questions • DAVID GILMOUR on the Far Eastern short stories of W. Somerset Maugham

Love, War and the Countess • PETER J. CONRADI on Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly, To War with Whitaker

Streets, Streets, Streets • FELICITY JAMES on the letters of Charles and Mary Lamb

How to Cook a Fox • T. M. DELANEY on Patience Gray, Honey from a Weed

Coming Home • ANN KENNEDY SMITH on Brian Moore, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

Fabulous Beasts • ALAN BRADLEY on Christopher de Hamel, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts

Portrait of the Artist in Middle Age • WILLIAM PALMER on Evelyn Waugh, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold

Gone Fishing • MARY HELEN SPOONER on the poems of Robert Service

Betrayals • CHRISTOPHER RUSH on George Orwell, Animal Farm

A Hardy Perennial • ISABEL LLOYD on Beth Chatto, The Dry Garden

Choppy Waters • MELISSA HARRISON on Robert H. Thouless, Straight and Crooked Thinking

Dog’s-eye View • REBECCA WILLIS on Alexandra Horowitz, Inside of a Dog

A Frank Look at History • ANDY MERRILLS on Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks

Walden-by-the-Sea • RICHARD PLATT on Henry Beston, The Outermost House

Prophesying War • PAUL BRASSLEY on Elizabeth Wiskemann, The Europe I Saw

Jeremy’s Progress • HELEN MACEWAN on Hugh Walpole’s Jeremy books

Time for Rhyme • CLARE MORRALL on The Ladybird books of nursery rhymes

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 is like a breath of fresh air . . . a pleasure to look at as well as to read’ Irish Times

Slightly Foxed Issue 65: From the Editors

Gail Pirkis & Hazel Wood

It’s spring again, and a bit of news that feels cheering in today’s disordered world reaches us via an unsolicited email from ‘the world’s leading market intelligence agency’. It seems that...

Asking the Right Questions

David Gilmour on the Far Eastern short stories of W. Somerset Maugham

Aspiring young writers of fiction wish to be stylish. For many of them style is more essential than content, perhaps more important than sincerity. They want their prose to be inimitable, like...

Love, War and the Countess

Peter J. Conradi on Hermione Ranfurly To War with Whitaker

I think it was my old friend the Evening Standard columnist Angus McGill who recommended Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly’s war diaries: Angus would have loved her unpretentious skill at conjuring up...

9 January 1942 | To War with Whitaker

Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly

This morning I went with Michael and Esther Wright to Mena where we met Freya Stark, Sir Walter Monckton and some more. We mounted donkeys and set off with a picnic lunch for Sakara. My donkey was...

Streets, Streets, Streets

Felicity James on the letters of Charles and Mary Lamb

I’m deep in mountain territory, with a pot noodle and a stack of Post-its in front of me. It’s past midnight, and my final undergraduate exams are just around the corner. Feverishly, between...

How to Cook a Fox

T. M. Delaney on Patience Gray, Honey from a Weed

During a time when I was unable to work I read a lot, and randomly, picking up whatever took my fancy in the local bookshop. I had recently moved to an old farmstead on Orkney with enough space to...

Coming Home

Ann Kennedy Smith on Brian Moore, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne

We first meet the eponymous heroine of Brian Moore’s novel The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1955) shortly after she has moved into her new lodgings. As she carefully unpacks a silver-framed...

Fabulous Beasts

Alan Bradley on Christopher de Hamel, Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts

Christopher de Hamel’s Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts (2016) is a joy. The binding, the layout and the lavish illustration make it a pleasure to handle before you even turn to the content,...

Portrait of the Artist in Middle Age

William Palmer on Evelyn Waugh, The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold

As The Ordeal opens, Gilbert Pinfold is a successful novelist in his late forties, but looking and feeling much older. He lives comfortably in the country with his wife and children. He does not...

Gone Fishing

Mary Helen Spooner on the poems of Robert Service

A few months before his death I gave my father a copy of the Collected Poems of Robert Service, a British-Canadian poet whose long ballads he had discovered in his younger, single days while working...

Betrayals

Christopher Rush on George Orwell, Animal Farm

I have a Russian wife. We work together – articles, talks, translations, books, to keep the wolf from the door. Sometimes, when a bigger than usual energy bill slides through the letterbox, or the...

A Hardy Perennial

Isabel Lloyd on Beth Chatto, The Dry Garden

The summer of 2018 was a glory – as long as you weren’t a gardener. For those of us who fret about plants, it was a season as much to be endured as enjoyed. After a cold, late spring, the weather...

Choppy Waters

Melissa Harrison on Robert H. Thouless, Straight and Crooked Thinking

Dishonest or ‘crooked’ arguments are nothing new, but recently our fractious politics coupled with the invention of the Internet have lent them a fresh intensity, and a wider reach. Would that...

Dog’s-eye View

Rebecca Willis on Alexandra Horowitz, Inside of a Dog

Inside of a Dog was in the New York Times bestseller list for over a year and completely passed me by because, like the baby books, you don’t need it until you’ve got your own. The author,...

Cover Artist: Slightly Foxed Issue 65, Kelly Louise Judd, ‘Spring Foxes’

Kelly Louise Judd

Kelly Louise Judd is an illustrator who lives in the mid-western United States. She is inspired by flora, fauna and folklore, and has a deep appreciation of the Arts and Crafts movement. Her...

A Frank Look at History

Andy Merrills on Gregory of Tours, The History of the Franks

I am a book annotator. Of course I never write in the margins of library books, and I wouldn’t dream of marking books lent by a well-meaning friend: I’m a book annotator, not a sociopath. But a...

Walden-by-the-Sea

Richard Platt on Henry Beston, The Outermost House

It is a typical winter night on California’s central coast: the rain has been drumming on the roof, the dogs, happy and dry, are curled up in their beds, and my wife and I are in our bed, propped...

Prophesying War

Paul Brassley on Elizabeth Wiskemann, The Europe I Saw

I enjoy reading thrillers. I might like to claim that literary fiction is my constant companion, but for most of the time it isn’t – the novels that Graham Greene described as his...

Jeremy’s Progress

Helen MacEwan on Hugh Walpole’s Jeremy books

My grandparents’ books were ranged in a deep alcove by the fireplace, a shadowy and mysterious recess that invited exploration. During visits in school holidays, I read my way through those faded...

Time for Rhyme

Clare Morrall on the Ladybird books of nursery rhymes

There’s a picture in The Third Ladybird Book of Nursery Rhymes of a small, nervous boy in knickerbockers appearing before a man of authority: ‘I do not like thee, Doctor Fell,/ The reason why, I...