The new quarter is upon us and, as befits the start of the new school year, we’re thrilled to welcome two new young foxes to the fold. Hattie and Stanley are both most charming, inquisitive, intelligent and cheering and are already expert at darting around the many boxes of books in the office. Hattie is rather more useful than Stanley in some respects as she has an excellent telephone manner and is quite a whizz at the packing desk but, with his spotty belly, long silky ears and big brown eyes, we feel office puppy Stanley has much to offer too, although office dog Chudleigh might not agree!
The arrival of Hattie takes our little team of full- and part-time staff to ten which seems rather extraordinary compared to the early days, but despite our gently increasing numbers there’s still very much a small family feel here at SF and we’re delighted to have a new fox on board to help with our latest haul of books and literary treasures. New this quarter we have the last two Carey Novels: Ensign Carey and Tank Commander, our 35th Slightly Foxed Edition, Anthony Rhodes’s Sword of Bone, the 2017 edition of the Slightly Foxed wall calendar (with a cover by a rather famous illustrator friend), a second delightfully foxy illustration for this year’s Christmas card and four more wood engravings for personalized bookplates, this time bearing a barn owl, geese in a meadow, a March hare and a dashing fox (as shown above).
Our own fox would do well to be rather more dashing this quarter for it appears the autumn issue has taken the long way round to some of our overseas readers. We’ve heard from a handful of subscribers in far-flung places that the new issue has not yet reached them, and that others’ copies have arrived in envelopes bearing a strange array of international postal stickers. Brazil via Budapest? Vermont via Vienna? Ireland via India? Most foxing indeed.
We very much hope that all outstanding copies will be delivered any day now but if yours doesn’t arrive in the next few days, fear not, you shall not be without the fox. If your issue has been lost, we will send a replacement copy out forthwith. Please do get in touch with Hattie in the SF office for more information. ([email protected] / +44 20 7033 0258).
Great to watch the film showing how books are made. Nice to see humans using their skills as well as machines.