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
Pauline Melville decides she’d rather not • Mick Herron sees life on Cannery Row • Clive Unger-Hamilton develops a taste for Paris • Sarah Crowden follows two middle-aged ladies to Andalusia • Margaret Drabble swims with the Water Babies • Annabel Walker changes her mind about Cornwall, and much more besides . . .
Underwater Heaven • MARGARET DRABBLE
Charles Kingsley, The Water-Babies
‘What larks!’ • ANTONY WOOD
Christopher Robbins, The Empress of Ireland
Hazy Memories of Hanging Rock • KATE YOUNG
Joan Lindsay, Picnic at Hanging Rock
Simply Delicious • CLIVE UNGER-HAMILTON
Theodora FitzGibbon, A Taste of Paris
An Outsider in Tregonissey • ANNABEL WALKER
A. L. Rowse, A Cornish Childhood
Partying down at the Palace • MICK HERRON
John Steinbeck, Sweet Thursday & Cannery Row
These Fragments • JON WOOLCOTT
John Harris, No Voice from the Hall
On the Shoulders of Giants • ANDREW JOYNES
T. H. White, England Have My Bones
A Long Way from Surrey • SIMON WINDER
H. G. Wells, The Island of Doctor Moreau
A Hot-Water Bottle and a Horse • SARAH CROWDEN
Penelope Chetwode, Two Middle-Aged Ladies in Andalusia
Labours of Love • PAUL EDWARDS
Alan Ross, Coastwise Lights
An Early-Flowering Climber • URSULA BUCHAN
The plant-hunting and garden writings of Reginald Farrer
Nothing but the Best • DANIEL WORSLEY
Iris Origo, The Merchant of Prato
Keeping up Appearances • KATE TYTE
Eve Garnett, The Family from One End Street
A Modern Prospero • BRANDON ROBSHAW
Iris Murdoch, The Sea, The Sea
Life among the Ledgers • PAULINE MELVILLE
Herman Melville, ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street’
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.
- Steinbeck, John
- Woolcott, Jon
- Unger-Hamilton, Clive
- Melville, Pauline
- Harris, John
- Walker, Annabel
- Winder, Simon
- Wells, H. G.
- Yeoman, Martin
- Chetwode, Penelope
- White, T. H.
- Kingsley, Charles
- Edwards, Paul
- Wood, Antony
- Young, Kate
- Farrer, Reginald
- Pirkis, Gail & Wood, Hazel
- Lindsay, Joan
- Worsley, Daniel
- FitzGibbon, Theodora
- Garnett, Eve
- Tyte, Kate
- Rowse, A. L.
- Melville, Herman
- Watson, John
- Herron, Mick
- Joynes, Andrew
- Buchan, Ursula
- Crowden, Sarah
- Drabble, Margaret
- Murdoch, Iris
- Origo, Iris
- Robbins, Christopher
- Robshaw, Brandon
- Ross, Alan
Slightly Foxed Issue 66: From the Editors
As we write this, towards the end of April, we are still in total lockdown because of the coronavirus. In these difficult times, we’d like to say how very touched we’ve been by all the extra...
Read more‘What larks!’
Essentially it is the story of the friendship between Christopher Robbins, a struggling young freelance journalist, and Brian Desmond Hurst, an ageing Irish film director who had already outlived his...
Read moreUnderwater Heaven
I can’t remember what age I was when I came across Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies. I must have read it earlier than my other childhood favourite, Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues under the...
Read moreHazy Memories of Hanging Rock
I have been reading aloud from Picnic at Hanging Rock for three hours when my friend touches the window beside her. I do the same; given the blasting air-conditioning, it seems impossible that the...
Read moreSimply Delicious
The food writer Theodora FitzGibbon was a late beginner, professionally speaking. Born Theodora Rosling in 1916 she received a cosmopolitan education, travelling widely in Europe and Asia with her...
Read moreAn Outsider in Tregonissey
There will be readers who find A Cornish Childhood too rooted in the egotism for which A. L. Rowse was well-known, or uncomfortably tinged with disdain for others – he dishes out verdicts such as...
Read morePartying down at the Palace
Sweet Thursday, published in 1954, is a sequel to Cannery Row (1945). Both are set in the Californian town of Monterey, once a bright and bustling place whose canning industry meant that the locals...
Read moreThese Fragments
I’ve always loved ruins and vanished buildings. If you share that interest, and many don’t, finding a fellow obsessive is wonderful. My fascination had lasted decades before I came across...
Read moreOn the Shoulders of Giants
We would race past a Saxon church, its western hindquarters sunk into the hillside, a kindly beast emerging from its lair. We would teeter in slow motion beside the dark timbers of a medieval bridge....
Read moreA Long Way from Surrey
A decade ago I took a decision which has made me happy ever since. At Christmas I would read only short books. This switch was first achieved when I decided to limit my holiday reading to the four...
Read moreA Hot-Water Bottle and a Horse
Long before the term was used to describe talent-free people in the public eye, John Betjeman was a celebrity: Poet Laureate, saviour of ancient buildings and National Treasure. But though his wife...
Read moreLabours of Love
The words on Alan Ross’s gravestone could hardly be simpler: ‘Writer, poet and editor’. They could scarcely be more accurate either, although one wonders whether their subject might have given...
Read moreAn Early-Flowering Climber
Reginald Farrer (1880‒1920) was unprepossessing in appearance, with a hare lip (the result of a cleft palate) only partially hidden by a moustache, a ‘pygmy body’ and a high, piercing voice....
Read moreNothing but the Best
It was grudgingly that I started to read Iris Origo’s The Merchant of Prato. My wife told me to. She had been referred to it for her studies. It sounded dry stuff, the re-creation of the life of a...
Read moreKeeping up Appearances
Eve Garnett’s children’s novel was first published in 1937, with her own illustrations. At least eight publishers had rejected it on account of its supposed ‘grittiness’. Here was a story...
Read moreA Modern Prospero
The Sea, The Sea was Iris Murdoch’s nineteenth novel and the only one to win the Booker Prize (in 1978). It is, to my mind, her best novel, as well as being the most representative of her talents...
Read moreLife among the Ledgers
I am rather fond of the crowd that Dante meets at the very start of his journey into Hell with Virgil. They are all rushing around moaning and shrieking on the edge of the River Acheron, hoping that...
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