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: Ysenda Maxtone Graham lifts up her voice • Robin Blake snoops about with Simenon • Rachel Cooke enjoys a French lesson • Samuel Saloway-Cooke feels somewhat flat • Daisy Hay delights in Emma • William Palmer goes down the pub with Myles • Ursula Buchan remembers A Day in Summer • Christopher Rush has a nasty moment on Dartmoor • Sam Leith does his best to grow up, and much more besides . . .
Arrows of Revelation • DAISY HAY on Jane Austen, Emma
The In-Between Years • SAM LEITH on Nicholas Fisk, Pig Ignorant
Lifting up Their Hearts • YSENDA MAXTONE GRAHAM on Hymns Ancient and Modern
Mooching around with Maigret • ROBIN BLAKE on Georges Simenon’s Maigret novels
A New Angle on Life • SAMUEL SALOWAY-COOKE on Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland
No Nylon Singlets • RACHEL COOKE on Diane Johnson, Le Divorce
Frivolity, Filth and Fortitude • PATRICK WELLAND on Caroline Moorehead, Dancing to the Precipice
Old Testament Profits • URSULA BUCHAN on J. L. Carr, A Day in Summer
The Loss of Innocence • NIGEL ANDREW on Philip Larkin, A Girl in Winter
Bore-Hunting in Dublin • WILLIAM PALMER on Myles na Gopaleen, The Best of Myles
Heart Trouble • NOONIE MINOGUE on Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier
Expressing the Inexpressible • JONATHAN LAW on Christopher Neve, Unquiet Landscape
A Modest Proposal • MELANIE MCDONAGH on Kaye Webb’s Puffin books
The Hound of Baker Street • CHRISTOPHER RUSH onArthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
In Praise of the Bookmark • SUE GEE
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. More . . .
- Leith, Sam
- McDonagh, Melanie
- Neve, Christopher
- Ford, Madox Ford
- Minogue, Noonie
- Moorehead, Caroline
- Johnson, Diane
- Saloway-Cooke, Samuel
- Simenon, Georges
- Doyle, Arthur Conan
- Abbott, Edwin A.
- Fisk, Nicholas
- Cooke, Rachel
- Andrew, Nigel
- Law, Jonathan
- Larkin, Philip
- Webb, Kaye
- Welland, Patrick
- Austen, Jane
- Blake, Robin
- Buchan, Ursula
- Carr, J. L.
- Gee, Sue
- Graham, Ysenda Maxtone
- Hay, Daisy
- Nunn, James
- O’Brien, Flann
- Palmer, William
- Rush, Christopher
Arrows of Revelation
Towards the end of Jane Austen’s Emma (1816), the heroine Emma Woodhouse has a moment of blinding clarity. Throughout the novel she has been treating her old friend and neighbour, Mr Knightley, as...
Read moreThe In-Between Years
Nicholas Fisk (1923–2016) is a half-forgotten name now, and his memoir Pig Ignorant is a wholly forgotten book. It deserves not to be, and he deserves not to be. Fisk was a bestselling children’s...
Read moreLifting up Their Hearts
At the end of the Easter holidays, 1973, my mother and I went to Harrods to buy the final required item on the clothes list for my new boarding prep school: ‘ 1 Hymn book: Hymns Ancient and Modern...
Read moreMooching Around With Maigret
Fifteen years ago I set out to invent a fictional detective to lead a series that I hoped would stretch to half a dozen novels. The great imperative was to come up with a character I could live with,...
Read moreA New Angle on Life
To save a little money for travelling before university, I took a job in the stockroom of a women’s fashion store in the nearest town. I had to be on site to receive deliveries before the store...
Read moreNo Nylon Singlets
The first time I went to France, I was 9 years old, and we drove all the way there in my mother’s tiny Datsun. The second time, I was a teenager, and sans parents, and I kissed a boy called Sylvain...
Read moreFrivolity, Filth and Fortitude
Among the excesses marking the dying days of the Bourbon ancien régime before it was swept away by the French Revolution was a craze for ridiculous hats. These structures elevated already...
Read moreOld Testament Profits
Nearly thirty years ago, I let down J. L. Carr, the novelist, and, as a result, regret grabs me by the throat every time I take down one of his books from the bookshelf. Reading A Day in Summer...
Read moreThe Loss of Innocence
I had been reading Philip Larkin’s poetry for years before, quite recently, I decided to have a look at his novels. I knew he had written a couple in his early years: Jill (1946) and A Girl in...
Read moreBore-Hunting in Dublin
Most fiction writers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries know the form and understand that they will meet the same fate: good reviews for a first novel, a larger advance for the...
Read moreHeart Trouble
It’s nearly thirty years since a friend lent me Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier (1915) and he’ll never get it back. I’ve read it five times since then – I like to revisit books. Of...
Read moreExpressing the Inexpressible
I’m sure it is not my worst shortcoming, but it may be the one that grieves me most: I simply cannot draw. Something in this business of squinting at the world and making appropriate marks on paper...
Read moreA Modest Proposal
Two Puffins are in front of me, picked almost at random from my bookcase. And by Puffins I mean Puffin books, represented by that cheerful little bird on the spine which was for my formative reading...
Read moreThe Hound of Baker Street
Every so often, I walk down one of Edinburgh’s steep hills to the Conan Doyle Medical Centre, so called because of its proximity to an old stone-built cottage. In the garden of this cottage there...
Read moreIn Praise of the Bookmark
Bookmarks make antiquarians anxious: will acid in their paper eat into precious pages? Will colour bleed? The oldest survivor, made of leather, lies within the sixth-century vellum of a Coptic codex....
Read more
