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W is for Warner, Sylvia Townsend | From the Slightly Foxed archives
Greetings from Slightly Foxed, and a very happy New Year to you all. Before we look ahead to this year's crop of new publications, we're taking stock, delving through our bank of back issues and sharing some good reading from the archives. Sylvia Townsend Warner's joie de vivre – evident in her diaries and described by Jonathan Law in his article from Slightly Foxed Issue 48 – is especially appealing this January.
'In 1927 Sylvia Townsend Warner was given a smart notebook by a friend; a day out prompted a few hesitant jottings and, before she knew it, she was off . . .'
If you have received a new diary this Christmas, or if we can tempt you with our selection of smart Slightly Foxed notebooks, then perhaps Sylvia can provide inspiration when faced with the blank page. Whatever the case, and wherever we find you, we do hope you'll enjoy dipping into her life and writing.
Last orders, please | Seasonal reading from Slightly Foxed
Warm wishes from Slightly Foxed where wrapping paper is running off rolls, ribbon is spiralling from bobbins and the final post bags are filling up as we ready ourselves to close the office for Christmas on Wednesday afternoon. Tomorrow (Tuesday 21 December) is the last advised posting date for First Class mail to arrive at destinations in the UK by Christmas, and Wednesday 22 December is the last day for Special Delivery. Please do place any last orders for Christmas as soon as possible, making sure to select First Class or Next Day Delivery as your postal option on the website or over the phone.
We'll send out some cheerful missives to keep you all fully foxed while we're away but otherwise we look forward to catching up with you when we're back at our desks on Wednesday 5 January. Thank you all for your continued support and enthusiasm throughout the year.
'An exquisite book' | Letters to Michael
An antidote to troubled times and a perfect Christmas present.
'Between early 1945 and autumn 1947, Charles Phillipson, an illustrator in the publicity department of an electrical company, wrote 150 letters to his young son, Michael – amusing drawings of daily life accompanied by a few cheerful words . . . His wife, Marjorie, kept them all and they have been gathered into an exquisite book, Letters to Michael, published by Slightly Foxed.' Country Life, 2021 advent calendar issue
By people who love books, for people who love books | Slightly Foxed Editions
'Smashing little hardbacks, the way hardbacks used to be . . . produced by people who love books, for people who love books.' Belgravia Books
There's still time for us to help with gifts for booklovers before the year is out, and we'd like to draw your attention to our Slightly Foxed Editions – beautifully produced pocket hardbacks, just the right size to hold in the hand and with a ribbon marker to keep your place. Perfectly designed to curl up with, these reissues of classic memoirs are highly individual and absorbing reads. So whether you're in need of a good book or a present for someone you're fond of, do seize the chance to stock up now.
'A subscription would make an inspired gift for a hungry reader.'
Greetings from Hoxton Square where we're busy wrapping and packing great piles of subscriptions and books and sending them out to readers near and far for Christmas (and many other occasions besides).
A subscription to Slightly Foxed magazine opens up a whole world of good reading. Companionable, entertaining and elegantly produced, it's more like a well-read friend than a literary review. So whether you're in search of stimulation, consolation or diversion, a treat for yourself or a present for a bookish loved one, we recommend taking out a subscription to Slightly Foxed or giving a single issue or one of our books a try. For all gift subscriptions, we can send out the first issue with a handsome card bearing your gift message. We can send it directly to the recipient or to you to hand over in person, and, if you like, we can wrap the first issue in good brown paper and tie it with our smart foxed ribbon too.
Beautiful books for the young at heart | Slightly Foxed Cubs
'Thank you very much for publishing Ronald Welch, Rosemary Sutcliff and BB sets. Your editions are a joy to handle and have given me many happy hours.' W. Smith
Reading recommendations and present ideas are in plentiful supply at Slightly Foxed. Today we're shining the spotlight on our Foxed Cubs series. These beautifully produced collectable children's books strike a nostalgic chord with many older readers and introduce a younger generation to writers whose marvellous books have, unaccountably, been allowed to slip out of print. Bound in coloured cloth, with printed endpapers and original illustrations, the Cubs make ideal presents, as stand-alone titles or in sets. We have books, bundles and offers to satisfy all readers and occasions.
A Calendar of Covers for 2022
'I love it! I intend to have some of the images framed as I did with the last calendar that I bought from you.' S. Jackson
We're delighted with the response to our latest calendar – a special celebratory one to mark our 70th issue earlier this year. We've just cracked open the last few boxes so if you've been thinking about ordering one, you might like to do so fairly soon. It would make a charming present for anyone who loves Slightly Foxed, or indeed for anyone who hasn't yet come across the magazine. It's a handsome, spiral-bound decorative wall calendar printed on sturdy paper with a board backing, and features some more of the seasonal Slightly Foxed covers that readers enjoy so much. We feel it will raise the spirits and look good in any room.
Literary Gifts & Seasonal Treats | Slightly Foxed Readers' Catalogue
Warm wishes from SF HQ. Parcels and packages are flying out from Hoxton Square to readers at a great pace and, whether they are literary gifts for a fellow bibliophile or seasonal treats that have caught your eye, we do hope they bring much cheer. Gift ideas for booklovers are abundant here at Slightly Foxed, and we hope that our online Winter Readers' Catalogue (which includes our pick of books from other publishers' bookshelves) provides some interesting and unusual present solutions. Or perhaps you may be tempted to stock up on some reading for yourself.
A Telegraph Best Book of 2021 | Letters to Michael
We are absolutely delighted to report that copies of our recently published Special Release – Letters to Michael: a father writes to his son 1945–1947 – have been flying out of Foxed HQ to readers around the world this month, many of them gift wrapped in good brown paper with hand-written notes to be opened on Christmas Day. This is thanks, in part, to glowing write-ups by Bel Mooney for the Daily Mail and Iona McLaren for the Telegraph a few weeks ago, and inclusion in a round-up of the very best books for 2021 by Telegraph critics this weekend. Thanks too to our bookselling friends at Daunt, John Sandoe, Hatchards and to many other wonderful independent shopkeepers up and down the country who have been creating delicious-looking displays featuring the book, pressing it into the hands of customers and selecting it for their seasonal catalogues.
The Wine Lover's Daughter | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
'Aside from his books, he loved nothing – and no one – longer, more ardently, or more faithfully than he loved wine . . . they both sparked conversation, they both were a lifetime project, they both were pleasurable to shelve, they were the only things he collected.'
Winter Reading | New from Slightly Foxed
Greetings, dear readers. We're delighted to announce that the new winter issue of Slightly Foxed is being sent out to subscribers this week and should soon begin to land on doormats around the world. We do hope it brings much reading pleasure. And for those of you who are on a repeat order to receive each limited-edition memoir each quarter, your usual hand-numbered copy of The Wine Lover's Daughter by Anne Fadiman will be with you very soon. There's still plenty of time to order subscriptions, books and goods in time for Christmas. We ship our wares all around the world and we will send out all of your delicious (and most welcome) gift orders over the next few weeks. The office is well-stocked with smart gift cards bearing wood engravings, reams of brown paper and signature cream foxed ribbon in anticipation.
Letters to Michael: a father writes to his son 1945–1947
'My dear Michael, Mummy and I are very pleased that you are now able to read books for yourself . . . As you grow older you will find that good books can be some of your best friends . . . Much love from Daddy'
It is 16 January 1947 and, as he does most days, Charles Phillipson has taken up his fountain pen to write to his young son Michael. Before Michael started school in 1944 Charles had already made him a book of playful drawings of the alphabet to encourage his reading. From early 1945 to the autumn of 1947 a sequence of 150 illustrated letters followed in which Charles captures the delight to be found in the mundane detail of everyday life, seen through the lens of his own quirky imagination. Now these letters have been gathered together in a handsome cloth-bound hardback edition. Letters to Michael presents a touching portrait of the relationship between a father and his son and captures a bygone age when people still wrote letters using pen and paper. Altogether, this charming book is an antidote to troubled times and would make a perfect present.
V is for Vonnegut, Kurt | From the Slightly Foxed archives
'All this happened, more or less. The war parts, anyway, are pretty much true.' Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5
Greetings from Slightly Foxed, where we've selected another article from the magazine's archive for everyone to read for free. This time we travel to Dresden in the Second World War by way of SF Issue 49, in which A. F. Harrold reviews Slaughterhouse 5 and reflects on the humanity of Kurt Vonnegut's writing.
'Slightly Foxed is a very civilized way to appreciate books and writers.'
'Slightly Foxed is a very civilized way to appreciate books and writers. No shouting, no hype, just beautifully presented enthusiasms, most of which are irresistible.' Michael Palin
Greetings from Hoxton Square, where we're sending books and copies of the magazine to readers as quickly as we're receiving deliveries of top-up stock and freshly printed titles from Smith Settle in anticipation of the coming season. A particular high point in the calendar will be our forthcoming Readers' Day, on Saturday 6 November. We're delighted to report that Michael Palin will be among the excellent contributors speaking at our usual London haunt, the Art Workers' Guild in Queen Square. There'll be a reduced audience for this year's event to allow for social distancing. If you would like to join us, we advise booking now to avoid disappointment.
Adrian Bell | A Countryman's Winter Notebook
We're delighted to bring you news of a Slightly Foxed special release: Adrian Bell, A Countryman's Winter Notebook.
'Bell writes always of the ordinary things, of the seasons, of memories, of rain and laughter. Gentleness fits him naturally, just as the purity of his words opens our eyes to a life all around us which we might otherwise never have seen.' So wrote the journalist Clement Court of his contemporary, the farmer-cum-writer Adrian Bell, best known for his rural trilogy, Corduroy, Silver Ley and The Cherry Tree, which vividly describe a time before machinery took over much of the work of men and beasts, altering the landscape and the face of farming forever. In addition to the books that followed his famous trilogy, from 1950 to 1980 Bell wrote a weekly column called 'A Countryman's Notebook' for Suffolk and Norfolk's long-serving local paper, the Eastern Daily Press. His columns were, as his son Martin Bell says in his preface, 'not really journalism but prose poems about the natural life around him', and these essays share that which is common to all his writing – a deep appreciation of the small moments of each passing day. Now a selection of these beautifully crafted essays has been gathered together and introduced by Richard Hawking to form the first, we hope, of a quartet of Bell's writings on the seasons.
A Celebration of Slightly Foxed Readers
'I have been a subscriber from the off, and I read every issue with pleasure. But I have to tell you that No. 71 is the best ever. The writing it contains is superb.'
Greetings from Hoxton Square, where we're in very good spirits and wish to share some cheering news with our readers. This quarter we're celebrating a new high: a first print-run of 10,000 issues of the new issue of Slightly Foxed magazine. As most of you will know, we regularly reprint our back issues so, over time, each issue has sold thousands of copies. But now, for the first time, we're up to 10,000 for the first run of an issue, which feels momentous to a small publisher like us and it's all thanks to you, our readers.
A Cab at the Door | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
For those of you who have yet to add V. S. Pritchett's classic memoir to your Slightly Foxed collection, we're pleased to bring news of our featured autumn read. The writer V. S. Pritchett's mother was an irrepressible cockney, his father a reckless, over-optimistic peacock of a man, always embarking on new business ventures which inevitably crashed – hence the 'cab at the door' waiting to bear the family quietly away from yet another set of creditors. In this vigorous and original memoir Pritchett captures the smells, sounds and voices of London in the first decades of the 20th century, and the cast of Dickensian characters among whom he grew up.
U is for Uhlman, Fred | From the Slightly Foxed archives
'Hooked, I read straight through to the end, with its startling twist. (Warning: resist the urge to take a premature peek.)' Martin Sorrell, SF Issue 69
Greetings from Slightly Foxed, where we've made great strides through the A-Z of the magazine's archives and selected another article for everyone to read for free. Many of you were prompted to add Reunion by Fred Uhlman to your reading list following Martin Sorrell's heartfelt recommendation in Issue 69 of the magazine. Such was the spike of interest in this novella, the publisher's stocks were entirely depleted. However, we're pleased to report that it's available to order again. Perhaps you'll be tempted to make a slim space on your bookshelves for this edition after reading Martin's review.
Sword of Bone | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
Our series of Slightly Foxed Editions are all absorbing reads – hitherto forgotten memoirs that bring alive a particular moment, that allow you into someone else's world and make you feel you have actually known the writer. Often these books light up a period in a way no history book can. And that is what Anthony Rhodes has done in Sword of Bone, his wry account of the events leading up to the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force in May 1940 – a 'strategic withdrawal according to plan' as the chaos was officially described. He manages to capture the absurdity as well as the tragedy of what took place in Dunkirk. For all its humour, Sword of Bone is a penetrating comment on the cruelty of war.
'Slightly Foxed is my little piece of heaven every quarter' | New this autumn
The new Autumn issue of Slightly Foxed (No. 71) has now left the printing press at Smith Settle and will start to arrive with readers in the UK very soon and elsewhere over the next few weeks. It ranges far and wide in the usual eclectic manner:
Margaret Drabble admires Doris Lessing • Andrew Joynes receives divine inspiration from William Golding • Olivia Potts has plenty to say about Mary Wesley • John Smart dreams of cheese • Clarissa Burden falls for Josephine Tey's Inspector Grant • Frances Donnelly visits Hotel du Lac with Anita Brookner • Ken Haigh make his case for The Hobbit, and much more besides . . .
With it, as usual, you'll find a copy of our latest Readers' Catalogue, detailing new books, our backlist, selected seasonal reading and other offers and bundles. We hope it will provide plenty of recommendations for reading off the beaten track this autumn.
Rosemary Sutcliff | Sword Song & The Shield Ring
'Sutcliff was a superb writer with a classicist's grasp of the era, a poet's eye for nature and a devilish sense of plot. Fiction this evergreen cannot fail to uplift.' David Mitchell
We're pleased to report that the final two titles in our Slightly Foxed Cubs series of Rosemary Sutcliff novels, Sword Song and The Shield Ring, are both published on 1 September. We know that many of you have already placed orders for these books, either as part of a limited-edition set of all seven novels or as single titles. As thanks for your enthusiasm and support, we've dispatched your copies in advance of publication and they will be with you very soon, if not already, so please do look out for them in the post. The series of Roman and post-Roman novels that began with The Eagle of the Ninth in the Sussex downland has, by the last two books, moved to the north-west coast of England and the Hebridean islands, where the Vikings are expanding their empire . . .
Last Waltz in Vienna | From the Slightly Foxed Bookshelves
Introducing the latest addition to the Slightly Foxed Editions list, No. 56: George Clare, Last Waltz in Vienna. Published 1 September.
In February 1938, the grand Konzerthaus in Vienna was in full, glorious swing; bands were playing, there was dancing and singing and plenty of beer. It was the first ball ever attended by the 17-year-old Georg Klaar, and he stayed until the very last waltz. But on 11 March, lorries began thundering into the streets, filled with uniformed men waving swastikas and shouting 'Death to Jews'. Austria was now betrayed and had been annexed by the German Third Reich. Barely four years later, Georg Klaar had become George Clare and was serving in the British army, and his parents had been rounded up and taken to Auschwitz. Only with hindsight can George discern the complex reasons for his family's destruction, and for the whole appalling waste of war. This is a profoundly moving, honest and compassionate memoir, remarkably devoid of self-pity, though not of anger.
Hilary Mantel | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
'I was so glad to hear An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel praised . . . Hilary Mantel's early novels get overlooked now and it is one of the joys of Slightly Foxed that it highlights areas like this.' As you know, dear readers, Slightly Foxed is the literary magazine for people who don't want to read only what the big publishers are hyping and the newspapers are reviewing. We hope to introduce, or reintroduce, you to all those wonderful books that languish on publishers' backlists. Hilary Mantel is now best known for her Thomas Cromwell trilogy, but we'd like to put the spotlight on a selection of other riches from her writing life. We published her powerful and haunting memoir, Giving up the Ghost, in our series of SF Editions and, in Episode 31 of the Slightly Foxed podcast, we recommended her darkly inventive novel, An Experiment in Love. Please read on for details of The Hilary Mantel Bundle, together with links to single titles by this author. You'll also find news of our forthcoming weekend wayzgoose – and amended office hours – as well as a special Summer Holiday offer for all readers to enjoy.
T is for Thubron, Colin | From the Slightly Foxed archives
'The love of words came before the love of travel.' Colin Thubron
Warm wishes from Slightly Foxed, where we're dipping into the archives to provide you with a free article to read this weekend. Maggie Fergusson met with the travel writer Colin Thubron in London in 2018 for her piece in SF Issue 58, but their conversation swiftly takes us to Damascus, Siberia and China through Thubron's love of words and travel.
Travel the world with Slightly Foxed
'The two weeks in Washington seemed to last an age, for travel makes time stand still, like a dream which takes one through a long series of adventures while actually lasting only a few moments.' Jessica Mitford, SF Edition No. 52: Hons and Rebels
Greetings from Hoxton Square, where we offer a series of adventures across the globe through our Slightly Foxed Editions. Guided by intrepid and entertaining travel companions, we traverse the United States with Jessica Mitford, Italian mountain ranges with Eric Newby, East Africa with Roald Dahl and blistering Spain with Laurie Lee. These are just a few of the far-flung destinations we visit in our series of classic memoirs – each edition brings alive a particular place and invites you into someone else's world.
'Ring of Bright Water caught me off guard' | Jim Crumley on Gavin Maxwell
Greetings from Hoxton Square where, this summer, we're travelling to far-flung destinations through the pages of Slightly Foxed. The latest issue of the magazine takes us far and wide, from language-hunting in the Karakorum and climbing Mount Kenya to Anthony Burgess's Malaya and Robert Graves's Ancient Rome . . . However, today we're heading to the West Highlands of Scotland with Gavin Maxwell's Ring of Bright Water, with the Scottish nature writer Jim Crumley as our guide.
Hand-grenade Practice in Peking | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
For those of you who have yet to pick up this favourite from the Slightly Foxed bookshelves, we're pleased to bring you news of our featured summer read. Based on the letters Frances Wood wrote home in 1975‒6, Hand-grenade Practice in Peking is both affecting and hilarious, a unique insight into a mysterious and painful moment in China's history.
S is for Sagan, Françoise | From the Slightly Foxed archives
'My love of pleasure seems to be the only consistent side of my character. Is it because I have not read enough?' Françoise Sagan, Bonjour Tristesse
Greetings from Hoxton Square, where we're once again travelling through the magazine's archives to provide some welcome weekend reading. Charlie Lee-Potter's piece on Françoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse appeared in Slightly Foxed Issue 14 and transports us to a summer spent on the French Riviera.
Escape from France | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
'Revisiting the Carey novels today, I am struck by how fresh and magnetizing they have remained, and by how much there is in these books – as there is in all good children's literature – that can be enjoyed by adults. It is common for readers of Welch to credit him with sparking a love of history . . .'
We thought it timely to travel back to June 1791 through the pages of Escape from France, a Carey adventure set in the midst of the French Revolution.
Look Back With Love | From The Slightly Foxed bookshelves
'I think I'm an oddity really, but I do my very, very best to write well'
We're very pleased to announce that Look Back with Love by Dodie Smith is now available in a cloth-bound hardback Plain Foxed Edition. These sturdy little books, bound in duck-egg blue cloth, come in the same neat pocket format as the original SF Editions.
In her preface to this edition, Dodie Smith's biographer Valerie Grove describes Look Back with Love as 'one of the happiest and funniest accounts of an Edwardian upbringing'.
And indeed it is.
Slightly Foxed for Father's Day
'Variety, the unexpected, a bit of vulgarity and the ridiculous mixed in with the elevated . . .' This has been Roger Hudson's recipe in compiling a commonplace book from material he's gathered over the past 40 years. Surprise, recognition, amusement, An Englishman's Commonplace Book calls forth a variety of reactions. Ranging over the centuries, it contains a rich mix of often arresting facts, vivid descriptions, absurd observations and wise words, all organized under subject headings to help find that appropriate quote. Altogether a book for the times and a perfect present. With Father's Day approaching we thought some of you may appreciate a few gift ideas for the father figures in your lives. All items can be wrapped in handsome brown paper, tied up with our smart and understated cream ribbon and sent off to the recipient, or to you to hand over in person, in good time for Sunday 20 June.
'The thrill of a new issue has not dimmed' | New this Summer from Slightly Foxed
We're delighted to report that the new Summer issue of Slightly Foxed (No. 70) has now left the printing press at Smith Settle and will start to arrive with readers in the UK very soon and elsewhere over the next few weeks. With it, as usual, you'll find a copy of our latest Readers' Catalogue, detailing new books, our backlist, selected seasonal reading and other offers and bundles. We hope it will provide plenty of recommendations for reading off the beaten track this summer. As ever, we look forward to the flurry of emails, letters, postcards and telephone calls that the turn of the new quarter brings – it's a joy to correspond with our readers. We do hope you'll enjoy the new issue of the magazine, wherever in the world you are.
Still Life | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
Introducing the latest addition to the Slightly Foxed Editions list, No. 55: Still Life. The historian Richard Cobb, famous for his brilliant books on France and the French Revolution, his inspirational teaching and his unconventional behaviour, grew up in the 1920s and '30s in the quiet and deeply conventional town of Tunbridge Wells. In this unusual memoir he recreates his childhood in entrancing detail. The book is indeed a 'still life', a snapshot of a miniature world caught at a particular moment in time. Yet every page contains some wonderfully recaptured human or geographical detail which stays in the mind and brings the town and its people colourfully alive again. 'Strange and wonderful,' wrote Hilary Spurling in the Observer when the book was first published. And indeed it is.
R is for Robinson, Marilynne | From the Slightly Foxed archives
'Once in a blue moon an encounter with a new book can be like falling in love' Ariane Bankes, Slightly Foxed Issue 20
Greetings from SF, where we hope our contributors' articles introduce you to a whole host of books to fall in love with. Or perhaps, at times, the magazine's reading recommendations reacquaint you with beloved books you might like to revisit. Whether or not you're new to the novels of Marilynne Robinson, Ariane Bankes states her case for picking up a copy of Housekeeping (and following this with Robinson's equally acclaimed Gilead series) in her article from SF Issue 20. Please find a link to read the full article below, and we do hope you'll enjoy it.
Beautiful books bound in duck-egg blue | Plain Foxed Editions
'Books wrote our life story, and as they accumulated on our shelves (and on our windowsills, and underneath our sofa, and on top of our refrigerator), they became chapters in it themselves.'
Greetings from SF HQ, where this line from Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris is ringing in our ears as we survey our book-filled scene, roll up our sleeves and spring clean the office in preparation for deliveries of yet more delicious books next month. If you'd like to help us clear a few shelves and take the opportunity to stock up on any Plain Foxed Editions you might have had your eye on, now is the time. By way of thanks for your support over the last year, we're providing a special offer when you buy pairs or sets of books from this perfectly pocketable series until Friday 7 May. We do hope you enjoy browsing our bookshelves.
Going Solo | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
Greetings from Hoxton Square where we're hurtling through the spring quarter at pace. When looking at our diaries to plan the week ahead, we were surprised to find that we've already landed on 20 April, which, this year, marks the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Athens. The Battle of Athens (also known as the Battle of Piraeus Harbour) is the name given by Roald Dahl to a dog-fighting air battle, fought between the Royal Air Force and the Luftwaffe towards the end of the Battle of Greece. Dahl describes this airborne adventure in his second memoir, Going Solo, which is available in a handsome Slightly Foxed Edition. He was clearly a brilliant pilot, and his account of what it was like to confront the enemy from the cramped cockpit of a Hurricane, with minimal training in how to fly it, is stomach-churning.
Q is for Quiller-Couch, Arthur | From the Slightly Foxed archives
Our series of recommendations for good reading via the magazine's archives has brought us to a letter of the alphabet we thought could prove troublesome. However, all fears have been eased as it offers up a writer Daphne du Maurier 'admired among all others', Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, whose works were published under the pseudonym 'Q'. Du Maurier was far from Q's only admirer. Helene Hanff enjoyed a volume of lectures by Quiller-Couch, and was inspired to seek out all the titles he recommended. This led to a correspondence with an antiquarian bookshop in London that lasted many years, and these letters became the beloved 84, Charing Cross Road. Helene pays her debt to her reading mentor in a subsequent memoir, Q's Legacy. Derek Parker states his own case for Q's legacy in this piece from Slightly Foxed Issue 21. Please find a link to read the full article below. We do hope you'll enjoy it.
The Cherry Tree | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
Greetings from Slightly Foxed where the team in the office are looking forward to an extended Easter weekend and the prospect of a healthy dose of fresh air, feasting and, most importantly, much good reading. Meantime, we'll leave you with a suitably seasonal extract from the final volume of Adrian Bell's trilogy of lightly fictionalized memoirs, The Cherry Tree. As SF Editor Hazel Wood writes in her preface to our edition, 'in these books [Bell's] keen and sympathetic eye combined with the practicality of the farmer to create some of the most poetic yet down-to-earth accounts ever written of life in the English countryside'. We'll be in touch again next week. Until then, we do hope you'll enjoy reading this extract and browsing our bookshelves.
P is for Portis, Charles | From the Slightly Foxed archives
Greetings from Hoxton Square where we've travelled through the magazine's archives and landed in the Wild West to provide some gripping weekend reading. Christopher Rush's piece on the 'incredible and enthralling adventures' of True Grit by Charles Portis appeared in Slightly Foxed Issue 39. Please find a link to read the full article below. We do hope you'll enjoy it.
Dawn Wind | Light in the Dark Ages
'In Dawn Wind, the fifth of her novels on Roman and post-Roman Britain, Rosemary Sutcliff is, as always, bang on the money . . .' So writes Sue Gaisford in her article on the latest addition to our Slightly Foxed Cubs series of classic children's books, and we couldn't agree more. We're delighted to have published Rosemary Sutcliff's Dawn Wind this month and, for those of you who have placed orders for this title, it will be with you very soon, if not already. Though most of her books were written primarily for children, the flesh-and-blood reality of Rosemary Sutcliff's characters, her convincing plots and her brilliant reimagining of everyday life in a remote and mysterious Britain have always attracted adult readers too. Dawn Wind is no exception. Within its opening pages we're introduced to Owain, the book's teenage hero who has both Roman and British blood in his veins, and learn that he is the sole survivor of a terrible battle with the Saxons. We do hope you'll enjoy this latest offering, whether you're a young reader or simply young at heart.
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
'I could go anywhere I liked in the world. There was nothing to stop me, I would be penniless, free and could just pack up and walk away.'
Introducing the latest addition to the Slightly Foxed Editions list, No. 54: As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning. When Laurie Lee set out on foot from his home in the Gloucestershire village of Slad one midsummer morning in 1935 he knew he was saying farewell to the idyllic country boyhood that he would later capture so unforgettably in Cider with Rosie. He was 19 and off to see the world with only his violin for company. He was aiming for London but decided to go via Southampton because he had never seen the sea. And so began a year of wandering that would take him from the north of Spain south to the Mediterranean.
'Slightly Foxed is a lovely quarterly delight – to be relished and cherished!' | New this Spring
We're delighted to announce that the new Spring issue of Slightly Foxed (No. 69) has left the printing press at Smith Settle and will start to arrive with readers in the UK very soon and elsewhere over the next few weeks. We hope it will provide plenty of recommendations for reading off the beaten track this spring. With it, as usual, you'll find a copy of our latest Readers' Catalogue, detailing new books, our backlist, recommended seasonal reading and other offers and bundles.
Pocket-sized and elegantly produced | Slightly Foxed Paperbacks
Our popular Slightly Foxed Paperbacks are perfect for slotting into a coat pocket or bag, and make charming presents. Delightful to look at, pocket-sized and elegantly produced on good cream paper, complete with French flaps, these reissues give you a chance to acquire some of the original hardbacks you may have missed. We're providing some special offers when buying multiples of these perfectly pocketable paperbacks, so whether you're in need of a good book or a present for someone you're fond of, do seize the chance to stock up now.
O is for Origo, Iris | From the Slightly Foxed archives
Greetings from Slightly Foxed HQ where we thought it high time to continue our tour through the magazine's archives and provide a free article – and a handful of book recommendations – for some weekend reading. Daniel Worsley's piece on The Merchant of Prato by Iris Origo appeared in SF Issue 66 and, for those of you who crave a change of scene, takes us back to fourteenth-century Tuscany. Please find a link to read the full article below. We do hope you'll enjoy it.
Marrying Out | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
We've been tidying the bookshelves to make room for our new spring publications and, lo and behold, we're down to the last copies of our handsome limited edition of Marrying Out, Harold Carlton's brilliantly observed, irresistibly hilarious memoir. If you've been thinking about adding this delightful book to your collection, now's the time. Please read on for an extract, introduced by Oliver Pritchett.
A friendship conducted through books | Notes from Slightly Foxed
Greetings from all of us at Slightly Foxed. In light of the latest restrictions in the UK, we wanted to reassure you that we are able to safely dispatch books and goods. Please note that all orders will take a little longer to be dispatched than usual, and we are very grateful for your patience and continued support.
In the spirit of celebrating bookish correspondence, we wanted to draw your attention to one of our well-loved Plain Foxed Editions, 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. The letters between Helene, a feisty, eccentric New York writer, and Frank Doel, a bookseller at Marks & Co. in London, reveal a growing friendship conducted through books.
Small World | From the Slightly Foxed archives
We're continuing our travels through the archives, selecting an article for each letter of the alphabet that everyone can read on our website for free. In this piece from Slightly Foxed Issue 42, Michael Holroyd discovers Mary Norton's The Borrowers in his 'second childhood'.
Last call for orders and seasonal reading from Slightly Foxed
Warm wishes from Hoxton Square where Christmas cards from readers are cheering up the bookshelves, wrapping paper is running off rolls and post bags are filling up and weighing down the post van as we ready ourselves to close the office for Christmas next week. The final post of the year will leave the office on Monday afternoon (21 December). Please order as soon as possible to give us enough time to pack and post your goods out in time for Christmas. For delivery before the 25th (UK) we suggest you also select First Class or Special Delivery as your postal option on the website or over the phone. For any last minute presents, or for items to be posted outside the UK, you can order all goods on our website and have a printable gift card sent to you or directly to the gift recipient by email. Meantime we will leave you with a seasonal excerpt from Christopher Rush's article on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, published in Slightly Foxed Issue 60, and we do hope you enjoy reading it.
'Smashing little hardbacks' | Slightly Foxed Editions
Greetings from Slightly Foxed. Parcels and packages are flying out of Hoxton Square to readers at a great rate and, whether they are presents for a fellow bibliophile or bookish gems that have caught your eye this season, we do hope they bring much literary cheer. There's still time for us to help with gifts for booklovers, and we'd like to draw your attention to our Slightly Foxed Editions – beautifully produced pocket hardbacks, just the right size to hold in the hand and with a ribbon marker to keep your place. Perfectly designed to curl up with, these reissues of classic memoirs are highly individual and absorbing reads. And, if you have missed out on a title or two from our series of limited-editions, our Plain Editions come in the same neat pocket format as the original SF Editions and will happily fill any gaps in your collection – as well as forming a delightful uniform series of their own, bound in duck-egg blue cloth. For those of you in need of a good book, do seize the chance to stock up now. We hope you enjoy browsing our bookshelves.
A Feast of Seasonal Treats | Slightly Foxed Readers' Catalogue
'I continue to enjoy reading and rereading Slightly Foxed and the books bought from the catalogues. Feasts indeed!'
Warm wishes from SF HQ, where festive spirits are high and feasting is on the menu: sipping and supping, hearty spreads of good reading and groaning tables (or in this case parcels and post bags) of seasonal treats. Present ideas for booklovers are abundant here at Slightly Foxed, and this week we're shining the spotlight on our picks from other publishers' bookshelves alongside our own wares. Please scroll down for recommendations selected on a similar theme. Whether you're in need of a few good books for yourself or as gifts for someone you're fond of this season, we hope you'll find these suggestions helpful.
Cider with Rosie | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
'Every single book Slightly Foxed publish is superb. (And beautifully made.) Just pluck at random from the catalogue and happiness is guaranteed.' So declared a Foxed reader just the other day, and we're delighted to add a new book to our list of cloth-bound pocket hardbacks this winter: SF Edition No. 53, Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee. Perfectly designed to curl up with, our reissues of classic memoirs are highly individual and absorbing reads, and the latest addition is no exception. Laurie Lee described this, his best-loved and best-known book, as 'a recollection of early boyhood', adding the acknowledgement that 'some facts may have been distorted by time'. Whether or not they have, as one critic put it, 'Cider with Rosie seems true as long as you're reading it – and that's the most important thing.' It's not just a rosy picture of a rural past, but a magical evocation of growing up in a lost world that rings emotionally true.
Winter Reading | New this Season from Slightly Foxed
Greetings, dear readers. We're delighted to announce that the new winter issue of Slightly Foxed is being sent out to subscribers this week and should soon begin to land on doormats around the world. We'd like to reassure you that we are dispatching parcels safely, so please do place orders as usual. There's still plenty of time to order subscriptions, books and goods in time for Christmas. Please do go forth and browse our online Readers' Catalogue, where you'll find our cloth-bound limited-edition hardbacks, our popular Plain Editions and paperbacks, a collection of literary bundles and goods and our pick of titles from other publishers' bookshelves. We do hope that it provides some interesting and unusual present solutions. Or perhaps you may be tempted to stock up on some reading for yourself . . .
Sprouts and Parsnip Wine | From the Slightly Foxed archives
Greetings from Slightly Foxed HQ. We'd like to reassure all our dear readers that we are dispatching books and goods safely during this time, so please do place orders as usual. Post is taking a little longer to arrive, both in the UK and overseas, but we endeavour to provide you with good reading as soon as possible. We are, as always, very grateful for your support. Speaking of good reading, and to bring some sunshine to this misty November day, we're escaping to the countryside in the latest free article from the archive, and enjoying parsnip wine with Sarah Perry. Sarah's article was published in Slightly Foxed Issue 58, and also appears as the preface to our edition of The Blue Field by John Moore. We do hope you'll enjoy it.
Rosemary Sutcliff | The Lantern Bearers
We were delighted to publish two new titles in our Slightly Foxed Cubs series of highly collectable classic children's books last month: Frontier Wolf and The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff. Sutcliff's four great novels set during the last years of the Roman occupation of Britain, The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, Frontier Wolf and The Lantern Bearers (winner of the 1959 Carnegie Prize), tell the story of several generations of the Aquila family, from the Empire's glory days to its final withdrawal, weakened by increasing pressure from Saxon raiders and internal power struggles at home. Though most of her books were written primarily for children, the flesh-and-blood reality of her characters, her convincing plots and her brilliant reimagining of everyday life in a remote and mysterious Britain have always attracted adult readers too. They have been difficult to find for some time and we're delighted to be reissuing them with their original illustrations.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy | From the Slightly Foxed archives
Greetings from Hoxton Square where once again we're sharing a free article from Slightly Foxed to complement a weekend of good reading. The magazine's archive now stretches to almost 17 years' worth of issues and over 1000 articles, all of which are available in print and on our website. This week we have combed through our back issues to bring you a piece by John le Carré's biographer Adam Sisman on a spy fiction classic, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
A Slightly Foxed Special | An Englishman's Commonplace Book
'Variety, the unexpected, a bit of vulgarity and the ridiculous mixed in with the elevated,' has been Roger Hudson's recipe in compiling this commonplace book from material he's gathered over the past 40 years. And that is what we are given in this wide-ranging collection by a well-read man with a sharp eye, an ironic – indeed very English – sense of humour and a devotion to history.
Shepherds' Lives | From the Slightly Foxed archives
Greetings from Hoxton Square where, following the dispatch of our autumn publications to readers around the world, our thoughts are beginning to turn to woolens, fireside nooks and making our way through the toppling piles of books we've selected from a bumper crop of recent titles. One of these books is James Rebanks's new offering, English Pastoral, a history of the Lake District farm he inherited and how the land has changed over three generations. Reading of farm life in the northern fells prompted us to revisit Ursula Buchan's article from Slightly Foxed Issue 53, which takes us back to James Rebanks's first book, The Shepherd's Life, and to W. H. Hudson's A Shepherd's Life, the book which 'turned the young Rebanks into a reader'.
Hons and Rebels | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
Introducing the newest addition to the Slightly Foxed bookshelves: SF Edition No. 52, Jessica Mitford's Hons and Rebels. 'It was becoming rather apparent by this year of 1935 that not all of us were turning out quite according to plan,' writes Jessica Mitford in this brilliantly funny and perceptive account of growing up as the fifth of the six notoriously headstrong Mitford sisters. And it was perhaps Jessica – always known as Decca – the lifelong hard-line socialist, who turned out least 'according to plan' of them all.
'One of the very best moments of each new season: when Slightly Foxed arrives'
We're delighted to report that the Autumn issue of Slightly Foxed (No. 67) has left the printing press at Smith Settle. With it, as usual, you'll find a copy of our latest Readers' Catalogue, detailing new editions, our backlist, books featured in the latest issue of the quarterly, a selection of literary goods and other offers and bundles. We do hope you'll enjoy the new issue of the quarterly, wherever in the world you are.
The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley
'"It was Uncle who was your father," she said.'
So begins SF Edition No. 33: The Secret Orchard of Roger Ackerley, Diana Petre's utterly unselfpitying and often very funny account of what must be one of the oddest childhoods on record. Diana and her twin sisters were abandoned in 1912 by their mother, the enigmatic Mrs Muriel Perry, whose real name and true identity were a mystery. After an absence of ten years, Muriel reappeared and took charge of her children, with disastrous results. For the girls, one of the highlights of their isolated lives were visits from a kindly man they knew as 'Uncle Bodger'. In fact, as Muriel finally revealed, he was their father, Roger Ackerley.
J is for Juster, Norton | From the Slightly Foxed archives
'If a rainbow ever fell to earth and became a book it would be The Phantom Tollbooth (1961) by Norton Juster. It is a thing of light, and wonder, and beauty.'
In this week's free article from the archives, we welcome you to Dictionopolis, the realm of words ruled by King Azaz in Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth. You'll find an extract in the newsletter, together with a link to read the full article by Rohan Candappa from Slightly Foxed Issue 29. We do hope you enjoy travelling beyond the tollbooth.
The Last Enemy | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
The Last Enemy by Richard Hillary is one of the great classic memoirs of the Second World War. Hillary was a charming, good-looking and rather arrogant young man, fresh from public school and Oxford, when, like many of his friends, he abandoned university to train as a pilot on the outbreak of war in 1939. At the flying training school, meeting men who hadn't enjoyed the same gilded youth as he had, his view of the world, and of himself, began to change. Shot down in 1940 during the Battle of Britain, he suffered terrible burns and was treated by the pioneering plastic surgeon Archibald McIndoe. During those brief and gruelling wartime months this once privileged young man was forced to grow up as he struggled to come to terms with his defacing injuries and mourned the loss of his friends
H is for Hayter, Alethea | From the Slightly Foxed archives
In this week's free article from the archives, we're transported to literary London in the summer of 1846, 'stifling in Elizabeth Barrett's cluttered Wimpole Street room'. Penelope Lively's piece on A Sultry Month by Alethea Hayter appeared in Slightly Foxed Issue 26.
My Grandfather & Father, Dear Father | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
We've been browsing our backlist of cloth-bound classics and thought it timely to open the covers of Denis Constanduros's charming memoirs, My Grandfather and Father, Dear Father, published together in a handsome Slightly Foxed Edition. These delightfully funny and affectionate portraits of the most influential male figures in the author's life conjure up two strongly defined characters and the times in which they lived.
'Slightly Foxed comes each quarter as a ray of sunshine . . .' | New this Summer
We're delighted to announce that the Summer issue of Slightly Foxed (No. 66) has left the printing press at Smith Settle. We hope it will provide plenty of recommendations for reading off the beaten track this summer. With it, as usual, you'll find a copy of our latest Readers' Catalogue, detailing new books, our backlist, recommended seasonal reading and other offers and bundles.
A message to readers
We are now safely able to dispatch orders for Slightly Foxed books and goods three days a week. Please note that all orders will take a little longer to be dispatched than usual.
We are so grateful that orders are coming in as they help our small business to keep going, and we value your continued support.
F is for Fisher, M. F. K. | From the Slightly Foxed archives
In this week's free article from the archives, we travel back to SF Issue 13 with Jane Lunzer Gifford and sample the gastronomical delights of M. F. K. Fisher's food writing. We do hope you enjoy this taste of Slightly Foxed.
The Empress of Ireland | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
We're delighted to share news of the latest addition to the Slightly Foxed Editions list, No. 51: The Empress of Ireland by Christopher Robbins. The subtitle to this delicious book is 'A Chronicle of an Unusual Friendship', and it would indeed be difficult to imagine two more unlikely companions than its author and his subject, the 80-year-old gay Irish film-maker Brian Desmond Hurst. This SF Edition is rolling off the presses at Smith Settle and is published on 1 June, together with the new summer issue and one of our most popular memoirs, Christabel Bielenberg's The Past Is Myself, which we're pleased to reissue in a handsome Plain Foxed Edition.
D is for Deakin, Roger | From the Slightly Foxed archives
In this week's free article from the Slightly Foxed archives, Sarah Anderson takes the plunge into Roger Deakin's Waterlog. We'll leave you with this bracing journey through the waterways of Britain from SF Issue 6, and we hope you enjoy reading it.
C is for Comyns, Barbara | From the Slightly Foxed archives
Sophie Breese revisits the novels of Barbara Comyns, her 'comfort read of choice despite some discomfort along the way', in this week's free article from the Slightly Foxed archives. Happy reading.
B is for Baker, J. A. | From the Slightly Foxed archives
We're continuing our travels through the Slightly Foxed archive, selecting an article a week that everyone – whether you're a subscriber to the magazine or not – can read for free while spending more time at home. This week Annabel Walker takes us to buzzard country as she rides the wind and tracks peregrines with J. A. Baker in this article from SF Issue 45.
A is for Allingham, Margery | From the Slightly Foxed archives
With most of us holed up at home for the moment, everyone needs a good stock of reading material. Therefore, we've decided to delve into the archive and select an article a week – making our way through an alphabet of authors – that anyone can read for free. We'll begin with a piece by Brandon Robshaw from SF Issue 52, in which he plays detective with 'queen of crime' Margery Allingham.
Slightly Foxed Editors' Diary News | March 2020
We feel we've come to know so many of you as friends from your letters, emails and phone calls, and if there was ever a time for friends to keep in touch, it's surely now. So here goes. Gail is writing from her West Country house on the edge of Dartmoor while Hazel is holed up at home in Highbury, North London.
A Note from Slightly Foxed
It is at times like these that good reading really is essential in providing both comfort and distraction. We've been receiving many heartening messages from all over the world about the soothing effects of reading Slightly Foxed and we are very grateful for your continued support.
Hilary Mantel | Giving up the Ghost
Hilary Mantel has said that this powerful and haunting book came about by accident. She never intended to write a memoir, but the sale of a much-loved cottage in Norfolk prompted her to write about the death of her stepfather, and from there 'the whole story of my life began to unravel'. It is a story of 'wraiths and phantoms', a story not easy to forget. Giving up the Ghost is a compulsively readable and ultimately optimistic account of what made Hilary Mantel the writer she is, full of courage, insight and wry humour.
Love, War and the Countess | Presents for Mothering Sunday & Other Occasions
With Mothering Sunday approaching we thought our readers might appreciate a few bookish present ideas – for a mother, a fellow booklover or yourself – beginning with the latest in our series of limited-edition cloth-bound pocket hardbacks: Hermione, Countess of Ranfurly's To War with Whitaker.
'It's a joy, a delight, a quarterly treat . . .' | New this Spring from Slightly Foxed
We're delighted to let you know that the Spring issue of Slightly Foxed (No. 65) left the printing press at Smith Settle yesterday and will start to arrive with readers in the UK from today and elsewhere over the next few weeks. It ranges far and wide in the usual eclectic manner. We hope it will provide plenty of recommendations for reading off the beaten track this spring. With it, as usual, you'll find a copy of our latest Readers' Catalogue, detailing new books, our backlist, books featured in the latest issue of the quarterly, recommended seasonal reading and other offers and bundles.
Blue Remembered Hills | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
We're pleased to announce that we're publishing Blue Remembered Hills by Rosemary Sutcliff in a handsome new Plain Foxed Edition. This memoir was the first title we published in our series of limited-edition pocket hardbacks all those years ago, and it's a pleasure to make it available to our readers again.
Dear Dodie | From the Slightly Foxed archives: Valerie Grove on Look Back with Love
Greetings from No. 53 where we've been busy with subscriptions, renewals and book orders thanks to those of you who've been adding to your Foxed reading lists. We're very grateful as the office is now looking shipshape and ready for the arrival of the spring quarter's offerings in just a few weeks' time. Before we look ahead to the new season, we're looking back through the SF archives. This article by Valerie Grove appears as the preface to our pocket paperback edition of Dodie Smith's Look Back with Love, in which we meet the funny, complicated, creative young reader who became a much beloved writer.
Ghosting | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
In the spirit of being included in writers' worlds, we've been browsing our backlist of Slightly Foxed Editions: hitherto forgotten memoirs that bring alive a particular moment and make you feel you have actually known the writer. Today we're opening the pages of Ghosting, Jennie Erdal's strange and gripping story of the twenty years in which she became a ghost writer for the man she calls 'Tiger', the flamboyant figure at the centre of this wickedly funny book.
More Capability Brown than Dewey Decimal | Slightly Foxed New Year Clean
Greetings from Hoxton Square where we've returned well-rested and ready for the year ahead following a relaxing Christmas break. Now our thoughts are turning to the annual office overhaul: shelf-shuffling, book-shifting and making space in preparation for a new year's worth of publications. Therefore, if you'd like to help us clear a few shelves and take the opportunity to stock up on paperbacks, back issues, Foxed Cubs and any other tempting bookish goods we'd be most grateful. To bring some cheer to the start of the year, we're continuing our special festive December offers until the end of January.
Period Piece | Seasonal reading from the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
Warm wishes from Hoxton Square where we're preparing to settle by the hearth with a good book and a celebratory glass of something festive. We look forward to catching up with you when we're back at our desks on Monday 6 January. Meantime, we leave you with an excerpt from Gwen Raverat's Period Piece, a deliciously funny picture of life in nineteenth-century Cambridge among the eccentric Darwin clan, illustrated with Gwen's own delightful drawings.
Perfectly designed to curl up with | Slightly Foxed Editions
Greetings from No. 53 Hoxton Square where spirits are high, wrapping paper is running off rolls and post bags are filling up quickly as we ready ourselves to wave off the post van one last time and close the office for Christmas. There's still time for us to help with literary gifts however, and we'd like to draw your attention to our Slightly Foxed Editions – beautifully produced pocket hardbacks, just the right size to hold in the hand and with a ribbon marker to keep your place. Perfectly designed to curl up with, these reissues of classic memoirs are highly individual and absorbing reads. So whether you're in need of a good book or a present for someone you're fond of, do seize the chance to stock up now.
A Delightful Uniform Series | Plain Foxed Editions
Present ideas for booklovers are abundant here at SF, and this week we're putting our Plain Foxed Editions in the spotlight. Bound in duck-egg blue cloth, with a silk ribbon marker, the Plain Editions come in the same neat pocket format as the original SF Editions and will happily fill any gaps in your collection – as well as forming a delightful uniform series of their own for a new collector or fellow bibliophile.
Winter Reading | Slightly Foxed Readers' Catalogue
Greetings from Hoxton Square where we're happily penning gift messages, winding ribbons, wrestling with tape guns and hauling post bags up and down the stairs to get all of your delicious (and most welcome) gift orders out over the next few weeks. There's still plenty of time to order subscriptions, books and goods in time for Christmas. We ship our wares all around the world.
Go forth, dear booklovers, and browse our online Readers' Catalogue, where you'll find our cloth-bound limited-edition hardbacks, our popular paperbacks and Plain Editions, a small collection of literary goods and our pick of titles from other publishers' bookshelves. We do hope that it provides some interesting and unusual present solutions. Or perhaps you may be tempted to stock up on some reading for yourself.
Delectable Collectable Children's Books | Slightly Foxed Cubs
Bound in coloured cloth, with printed endpapers and original illustrations, the Foxed Cubs make ideal presents, as stand-alone titles, or in sets. Whether you wish to venture back to Roman Britain with Rosemary Sutcliff, escape to the wild with 'BB', join up the dots of history with Ronald Welch, or begin to build a library for a young booklover by picking a few titles by each author (or collecting the full set at once) we have books, bundles and offers to satisfy all readers and occasions.
Perfectly Pocketable | Slightly Foxed Paperbacks
Our popular Slightly Foxed Paperbacks are perfect for slotting into a coat pocket or bag, and make charming presents. Delightful to look at, pocket-sized and elegantly produced on good cream paper (complete with French flaps), these reissues of classic memoirs are wonderful reads – all of them absorbing and highly individual. So whether you're in need of a good book or a present for someone you're fond of, do seize the chance to stock up now.
The House of Elrig | From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves
'This is a beautiful, sparkling book, a brief glimpse of a wild childhood that is recognizable even in its strangeness – he has captured the essence of youth, that delicate balance of happiness and misery.'
Before we become tangled in ribbon and swaddled in wrapping paper, we thought it timely to browse our bookshelves and head to the windswept shores of Galloway for some bracing fresh air. This article by Galen O'Hanlon appeared as the preface to our limited hardback edition of Gavin Maxwell's The House of Elrig.
Pillow Talk | From the Slightly Foxed Archives: Oliver Pritchett on Reading in Bed
'The etiquette of bedtime reading is such a delicate matter that we must approach it on tiptoe . . .'
Greetings from No. 53 where we're battening down hatches and stacking up reading piles as we approach winter, on tiptoe or otherwise, and watch the nights draw in ever closer. The clocks go back this Sunday, giving us an extra hour in bed with a good book. Therefore, we're turning back the clocks to Slightly Foxed Issue 37 and appreciating some amusing and enlightening pillow talk from Oliver Pritchett, all about the delicate etiquette of reading in bed.
Helene Hanff | 84, Charing Cross Road
We are delighted to let you know that 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff is now available as a cloth-bound hardback Plain Foxed Edition. It's a gloriously heart-warming read, the account of a friendship – almost a love story – conducted through books that captures the essence of a slower, gentler era.
Hands off the Handlebars | Roald Dahl's Boy
We are pleased to share news of the latest addition to the Slightly Foxed Editions list, No. 48: Boy by Roald Dahl.
'This is not an autobiography. I would never write a history of myself. On the other hand, throughout my young days at school and just afterwards a number of things happened to me that I have never forgotten.'
No one who reads it is likely to forget Dahl's recollections either. It's easy to see where the ogres who people Dahl's fiction come from . . .
New this Autumn from Slightly Foxed
'Slightly Foxed comes four times a year and turns that day into gold' | We're delighted to let you know that the Autumn issue of Slightly Foxed magazine (No. 63) has left the printing press at Smith Settle. We do hope you'll enjoy the new issue wherever in the world you are. It ranges far and wide in the usual eclectic manner . . .
The Eagle of the Ninth | The dark hour before the dawn
'The best kind of historical fiction, far too good to be limited to children's bookshelves'
We are pleased to announce the publication of two new titles in the Slightly Foxed Cubs series of highly collectable classic children's books, The Eagle of the Ninth and The Silver Branch by Rosemary Sutcliff.
Adrian Bell | Corduroy
We are delighted to let you know that, following sell-out runs in its original limited SF Edition and subsequent paperback incarnation, Corduroy has just been published as a cloth-bound hardback Plain Foxed Edition. These sturdy little books, bound in duck-egg blue cloth, come in the same neat pocket format as the original SF Editions and will happily fill any gaps on your shelves, as well as forming a delightful uniform edition on their own.
The Slightly Foxed Summer Shelf Clean
Pocketable Paperbacks, Collectable Cubs, Irresistible Issues
Herewith our occasional plea to our dear readers to help us clear a few shelves this August by stocking up on paperbacks, notebooks, back issues, Cubs and greetings cards. Various bundles and other tempting offers appear in the newsletter . . .
Paradise Regained | From the Slightly Foxed archives: Simon Barnes on My Family and Other Animals
Let's sit back with a long cool drink in hand to be spirited away from the hustle and bustle of Hoxton to the island paradise of Corfu with Gerald Durrell and family. This lovely piece by Simon Barnes was commissioned as the preface to our limited hardback edition of My Family and Other Animals . . .
From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves || The Flame Trees of Thika
Our handsome edition of Elspeth Huxley's much-loved memoir of her childhood in Kenya will soon go out of print and we won't be reissuing it so, if you've been thinking about adding this delightful book (bound in burnt orange cloth with jungle green endpapers) to your collection, now's the time . . .
Heroes and Haberdashers || Present ideas for Father's Day and other occasions
With Father's Day approaching we thought some of you may appreciate a few present ideas for the father figures in your lives. All presents can be wrapped in handsome brown paper and tied up with a suave and understated cream ribbon and sent off to the recipient, or to you to hand over in person, in good time for Sunday 16 June. Gifts may be sent all over the world and should arrive at far-flung destinations in good time but if you're worried about delivery times, you can always request an e-mailable or printable gift card during the checkout process to tide you over.
New this Summer from Slightly Foxed
We're delighted to let you know that the Summer issue of Slightly Foxed (No. 62) left the printing press at Smith Settle yesterday and will start to arrive with readers in the UK from today and elsewhere over the next few weeks. It ranges far and wide in the usual eclectic manner. With it, as usual, you'll find a copy of our latest Readers' Catalogue, detailing new books, our backlist, books featured in the latest issue of the quarterly, recommended seasonal reading and other offers and bundles. We do hope you'll enjoy the new issue of the quarterly, wherever in the world you are. If you are on a repeat order to receive each limited-edition memoir each quarter, your usual hand-numbered copy of Love and War in the Apennines will be with you very soon. We shall look forward to the usual flurry of emails, letters, postcards, telephone calls and visits that the turn of the new quarter brings – hearing from you all is one of the nicest parts of the job.
From the Slightly Foxed archives || Not Swinging, Just Dancing
As regular readers know, each issue of the magazine itself ranges far and wide across all sorts of books and subjects – from non-fiction, fiction, poetry, biography, memoir, guides and even, once, a manual for operating a British Seagull Co. outboard motor but as our newsletters have been rather more non-fiction focused of late, we thought it was high time we shared a recommendation for fiction. So, in this selected article from the archives, we're dancing back to Issue 35 (Autumn 2012) with Linda Leatherbarrow on the novels of Edna O'Brien.
From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves || John Moore, Brensham Village
Easter greetings from Hoxton Square where the office foxes are feeling slightly guilty but mostly delighted at the prospect of having four days off, with little to do but lounge around and read, possibly with a glass of something cold in hand if the weather forecast for England is to be believed.
Meantime we'll leave you to enjoy this suitably seasonal extract from John Moore's Brensham Village, introduced by Sue Gee . . .
From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves || Jan Morris, Conundrum
How James Morris finally became Jan is an extraordinary story, and her memoir Conundrum is a gripping and thought-provoking read which casts fascinating light on the fevered debates of today. Read on for an extract from Chapter 15 where we join James at his beloved home Trefan in Wales where he spends one last summer living as a man before heading for Casablanca to meet the magician . . .
The Parent Is Always Wrong || Presents for Mothering Sunday & Other Occasions
'Dear Reader, you may take it from me, that however hard you try – or don't try; whatever you do – or don't do; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; every way and every day:
THE PARENT IS ALWAYS WRONG
So it is no good bothering about it. When the little pests grow up they will certainly tell you exactly what you did wrong in their case. But, never mind; they will be just as wrong themselves in their turn. So take things easily; and above all, eschew good intentions . . .'
With Mothering Sunday fast approaching we thought our newsletter readers might appreciate a little instruction in the art of parenting from the ever-charming Period Piece by Gwen Raverat.
New this Spring from Slightly Foxed
We're delighted to report that the Spring issue of Slightly Foxed (No. 61) has left the printing press at Smith Settle. It ranges far and wide in the usual eclectic manner, and we do hope it will provide plenty of recommendations for reading off the beaten track. With it, as usual, you'll find a copy of our latest Readers' Catalogue, detailing new books, our backlist, books featured in the latest issue of the quarterly, recommended reading and other offers and bundles . . .
From the Slightly Foxed bookshelves || Country Boy
We're down to our last binders' parcel of Slightly Foxed Edition No. 22, Country Boy. Richard Hillyer was the pseudonym used by Charles Stranks, a farmworker's son who grew up in great poverty in a remote Buckinghamshire village in the years before the First World War. Hillyer describes how, against all the odds, he discovers a love of reading, manages to educate himself and get to university. Country Boy has been a firm favourite with readers over the years, and copies of our handsome edition have been steadily slipping off the shelves without fanfare. Now, as it nears the end of its time on the SF list, we thought we'd send if off in style with an extract . . .
January News: The Slightly Foxed New Year Clean
We were very sorry to hear news of the editor, writer and publisher Diana Athill OBE's death last week, at the extremely grand age of 101. Diana was a source of great inspiration to all of us here at SF and her wonderful memoir Stet is practically required reading for new staff. If you haven't yet done so, you can listen to Hazel talking about Diana and the art of editing in the latest episode of the Slightly Foxed Podcast.
January News: All Hands to the Pump
It's now all hands to the pump for our annual New Year clean. If you'd like to help us clear a few shelves and take the opportunity to stock up on paperbacks, notebooks, back issues or Carey Novels we'd be most grateful . . .
November News: Neither a Borrower . . . ?
Most Slightly Foxed readers, we suspect, have some irritating gaps on their bookshelves left by favourite titles lent and never returned. Our regular contributor Oliver Pritchett addressed this problem back in SF Issue 33, offering readers some elementary do's and don'ts of book etiquette,…
November News: The gift of beautifully packaged good reading
If you would like to introduce a fellow booklover to the world of Slightly Foxed this Christmas, why not get your order in before the rush? The packing desk is well-equipped with rolls of good brown paper, lengths of foxy cream ribbon, piles of wood-engraved gift cards and towers of handsome gift boxes in hopeful anticipation . . .
October News: Forest School
As the build-up to Christmas in all of its fun and exhausting glory fast approaches, the office foxes have been wondering if they could abandon the scaffold-clad confines of Hoxton Square for a spell in the forest. But then who would greet Paul from Smith Settle with the winter haul in a few weeks' time, hand-write gift messages, swaddle parcels in tape and wrestle postbags downstairs for our cheery postman to collect each day? No! It simply won't do. We are far too fond of our readers and conscious of their literary present requirements for that so, for this month's mailing, we're making do with a spot of armchair escapism with Brendon Chase instead . . .
September News: This is the way light fell on the picture for me . . .
Greetings from No. 53, where the number of boxes is fast diminishing and the route to the kettle fast widening as the office foxes beaver away to get books into the hands of readers around the world . . . Please read on for an extract from the latest title in the SF Editions list, Jennie Erdal's wickedly funny Ghosting: A Double Life, introduced by a snippet of SF editor Hazel's article in the current issue of the quarterly.
September News: Wonders & Absurdities
Each Christmas for the past sixteen years Dr Philip Evans has sent his friends and family a small booklet of 'wonders and absurdities' gleaned from many different sources over the year. When he sent the booklets to us they made us laugh so much we decided to publish a selection. The result is A Country Doctor's Commonplace Book, a very personal look at the pleasures and eccentricities of English life from a well-read individual with a keen sense of humour and many decades of observing his fellow men and women in his work as a Suffolk GP. Altogether this is a little book we'd say you can't do without in these serious and uncertain times . . .
September News: What glory!
It's the turn of the quarter once again here at Slightly Foxed and what a glorious haul the new season brings.
Thanks to the usual sterling work of Tracey and her team at Smith Settle printers in Yorkshire, the new issue of the quarterly: No. 59, 'Manhattan Moments', is now on its way to readers all around the world. We do hope you'll enjoy it when it arrives.
August News: The last days of summer
The last days of the Slightly Foxed Summer Clean are upon us . . . Don't forget that for all orders over £20 received before the end of the month we'll send you a complimentary set of handsome bookmarks by way of thanks.
August News: By Order of the Editors, Wayzgoose Holiday
We don't really do sales here at Slightly Foxed so instead we thought we'd simply send out a plea to our dear readers to help us clear a shelf or two this August, and take the opportunity to stock up on paperbacks, notebooks, back issues and cards . . .
August News: Marching with Marlborough
It is August 1704 and the Duke of Marlborough is leading an allied army through the Low Countries to challenge the Catholic Louis XIV of France, who has his eye on the Spanish throne . . .
Do read on for an introduction to Ronald Welch's Captain of Dragoons, a wonderfully atmospheric and fast-moving book set during the early years of the War of the Spanish Succession, by our dear – now sadly departed – friend, reader and regular contributor Jeremy Lewis.
August News: The Slightly Foxed Summer Clean
July News: The Last Enemy
As the Battle of Britain was being commemorated with a roar of engines and ribbons of coloured smoke for the RAF's special centenary year celebrations overhead this lunchtime, here at No. 53 we were turning to the bookshelves to prepare to celebrate in a literary fashion for today's newsletter . . .
June News: In search of the thing itself
Inspired by the thought of fleeing the scaffolding of Hoxton Square, we're steaming into the Slightly Foxed archives, travelling back to the spring of 2013 and stopping off in Brazil, via Ukraine, to meet one rather extraordinary writer in this month's article from a back issue . . . 'Her name is Clarice Lispector, one of the most original and fascinating writers of the twentieth century.'
June News: Noises and Places
Summer is now in full swing here at Slightly Foxed. The new issue of the quarterly has travelled far and wide to subscribers all over the globe, and whether you too are off to far-flung places this summer, or simply staying at home, we hope you'll find it good company.
In this month's newsletter we're celebrating fathers and grandfathers with Denis Constanduros's charming memoirs, My Grandfather and Father, Dear Father, published together for the first time as our 20th Slightly Foxed Edition. Do read on for an extract from this charming book, and a few suggestions for presents for this coming Father's Day or, indeed, for any occasion.
May News: A kind of Englishness
Greetings once more from No. 53 Hoxton Square. The turn of the quarter is almost upon us and we have the pressing – and cheering – business of good reading to report. The cream pages of the summer issue of Slightly Foxed, No. 58: 'A Snatch of Morning', have rolled off the printing presses up at Smith Settle, been pressed, nipped, trimmed, sewn and bound, and then lovingly stuffed into handsome (and ecologically friendly) sturdy brown envelopes and bundled into postbags to begin their journey around the world . . . And we're off to Brensham with our 42nd Slightly Foxed Edition, The Blue Field, and a snippet of Sarah Perry's lovely preface by way of introduction.
May News: Laura, Lousia and Me
Inspired by our contributor Sarah Perry and our fellow booklovers Lucy Mangan and Damian Barr (see the body of the newsletter to enter the draw for tickets to a special Literary Salon event at The Savoy featuring Sarah and Lucy next month) and by Lucy's recent memoir Bookworm, we're revisiting some favourite childhood reading with Daisy Hay, in her piece from Slightly Foxed Issue 32. Happy reading.
April News: The Call of the Sea
Inspired by the call of the sea, for this week's newsletter we dived into the Slightly Foxed archives and fished around for something suitably watery. We floated past some very good pieces on Swallows and Amazons (Issue 18), Patrick O'Brian (Issues 40, 42, 44) and The Compleat Angler (Issue 54), but we were looking for something a little more unusual. A few more kicks and there it was: nineteenth-century fisherman on the east coast of Scotland, a lost love and plenty of adventure. So off we go to sea, with Galen O'Hanlon on Neil M. Gunn's The Silver Darlings.
March News: That unsettling misunderstanding over the eggs
For this newsletter we're travelling to Cairo with a young Priscilla Napier to investigate an unsettling egg-related incident in an extract from A Late Beginner, introduced by Penelope Lively whose latest memoir – Life in the Garden – is one of our favourite books published in recent months. Please read on for an extract and, to follow, a few spring reading ideas, some missives from readers and new subscriber offers from Foxed Friends.
March News: A beautiful mother who adored him
Greetings from Hoxton Square where the new quarter's usual delightful flurry of orders is keeping the office foxes on their toes. Ordinarily we send out a newsletter just once a month, so you may be wondering why you've now received two in fairly swift succession. Well, in last week's missive we rashly promised we'd be in touch again soon with some further suggestions for Mothering Sunday presents. We suspect that most of you have been extremely well-organised and have already placed your orders by now, but we did promise so if you are in need of some last-minute ideas you'll find a few suggestions in this newsletter . . .
February News: Collar as Dawn. Back as Snowdrop.
Meteorologically speaking, we are still deep in mid-winter, but here at Slightly Foxed the new quarter waits not for the weather, so we are delighted to announce that it is now, officially, spring. Thanks to the sterling work of Tracey and her team at Smith Settle printers in Yorkshire, the new issue of the quarterly: No. 57, 'A Crowning Achievement', is now on its way to readers all around the world. Whether you make the most of the inclement weather and curl up in a favourite chair to devour it immediately or wait for a fair day for some al fresco reading, we do hope you'll enjoy its typically eclectic collection of good writing and good reading . . .
January News: Beside the Folly Brook
A belated happy New Year to you all from No. 53 Hoxton Square. January at Slightly Foxed is a time of great activity as, with set jaws and the kettle on a permanent rolling boil, we turn to the annual task of 'proof-reading the database'. . . We'll be in touch again next month with more news of the coming quarter's issue and books but for now, let's meet at the Folly Brook with 'BB' and his Little Grey Men.
December News: Winter Reading from Slightly Foxed
The last few months have whipped past in a flurry of ribbon, brown paper, gift cards and books as Anna, Jennie, Katy, Olivia and Hattie (with help from extra elf Izzie) have worked like mad things to get everything packed up and posted out…
November News: No Book Without A Foreword
There are subscriptions to arrange, presents to be wrapped, renewals to attend to and office puppies to be walked, so we'll leave you in peace to read an extract from the new Slightly Foxed Edition: No. 40, When I Was a Little Boy, a charming and poignant memoir by the author of the well-loved children's classic Emil & The Detectives, Erich Kästner.
September News: Bloomsbury Blue
Our shelves may be somewhat overloaded but they're firmly rooted to the floor so as to avoid any shelf-related disasters of the Hogarth Press variety . . . Do read on for an extract from this wonderful book and to follow, details of the new season's offerings.
August News: Dunkirk – An unofficial history
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that the book of the film is usually rather better than the film itself, as Jane Austen certainly never said, but we like to think she would agree. Having not yet seen Christopher Nolan's latest cinematic offering, Dunkirk, we shall have to reserve judgement on this occasion, but we can be absolutely certain that as memoirs from the Second World War go, and especially those related to Dunkirk, Anthony Rhodes's Sword of Bone is outstanding.
July News: Re. your request for ideas for holiday reading:-
Once a month or so throughout the year, we meet around the kitchen table here at No. 53 to discuss the all-important ins and outs of Slightly Foxed business. We pore over officious spreadsheets and schedules, mutter about analytics and databases, discuss logistics for our annual Readers' Day, mull over binding cloth and endpaper colour combinations, and then rattle through marketing before getting down to the VIP business of jollity. And, what could be jollier than not one, but two summer wayzgooses?
June News: The Word-Hoard – Love Letters to Our Land
At this time of year, the build-up of desket syndrome at SF HQ is increasingly problematic, and the prospect of escaping the city for a dose of the natural world becomes more appealing by the day. High up on our current wish list of excursions is a day out at The Word-Hoard exhibition at William Wordsworth's childhood home in the Cumbrian town of Cockermouth . . .
June News: There was this cock-sparrow, my father . . .
In V. S. Pritchett's wonderful memoir of his childhood and youth, A Cab at the Door, 'VSP', as his friends called him, grew up in the shadow of a father whom his own son, our regular contributor Oliver, describes as very like Dickens's Mr Micawber – expansive, extravagant, insanely optimistic, always certain that 'something would turn up'. Usually it didn't – hence the 'cab at the door', waiting to bear the family quietly away from another clutch of creditors . . .
June News: Ploughing On
Summer has arrived at No. 53 Hoxton Square with the publication of the 54th issue of Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader's Quarterly and our 38th limited edition hardback, Adrian Bell's The Cherry Tree. In the weeks preceding the Bank Holiday, the good people of…
May News: A character in ink-and-paper
Early copies of the Summer issue of Slightly Foxed have arrived in Hoxton Square, ready to be sent out to subscribers and bookshops all around the world in time for its release on 1 June. We don't want to spoil…
Jeremy Lewis
Jeremy Lewis, a well-loved figure of the literary world and a friend of Slightly Foxed, died in April 2017 aged 75. He was a man of letters through and through, and his long career included early bouts of publishing, writing…
April News: Take the yolks of five-hundred eggs . . .
Now the year has turned and the bluebells and crocuses are bravely weathering the winds whipping around Hoxton Square, we're looking forward hopefully. So far the year is shaping up to be another most enjoyable one. We've sent the summer issue…
March News: A Great Adventure
As you may have seen from recent newsletters, this spring at Slightly Foxed we're championing the brave and intrepid bibliophile Katy Macmillan-Scott as she embarks on a great literary adventure in memory of her spirited and adventurous friend Harriet. We…
March News: Her name was Muriel Haidée Perry
Spring, with its sweet shoots, plans and prospects, is upon us at No. 53, Hoxton Square. Slightly Foxed Issue 53 and our two new books, Hilary Mantel's Giving up the Ghost and Ronald Welch's Sun of York, should by now…
A Fellowship of Readers
Spring will soon be upon us and it will be precisely thirteen years since the first issue of Slightly Foxed appeared. Then of course we had no idea of what SF would become – more of a friendly worldwide fellowship of readers than simply a magazine . . .
Shape Up and Ship Out
A happy New Year to all our readers around the world! We hope you've had a restful break, with plenty of reading time. The foxes certainly did, and are now back at their desks feeling relaxed and ready for another…
The Slightly Foxed Bestseller!
Country Life Book of the Week 'The most brilliant, hilarious book' India Knight 'Probably my book of the year' Rupert Christiansen 'When I asked a group of girls who had been at Hatherop Castle in the 1960s whether the school…
Attended by the Seasons
The year is almost over, and what a year it's been – from a sad goodbye to our bookshop in January to a very jolly 50th issue celebration in June. Now we're delighted to be ending our 13th year on a high with a…
November News: More than just a magazine
If you're already one of our subscribers, we know we needn't tell you about the pleasures of Slightly Foxed. But if you're a new reader or are considering taking out a subscription, for yourself or as a gift for a booklover,…
November News: Old Girls & Very Old Girls
Old Girls and Very Old Girls Ordinarily at this time of year the Slightly Foxed office would be a haven of calm. With the autumn quarterly behind us and a month to go until the winter issue and SFE are…
Hooray for School!
'When I asked a group of girls who had been at Hatherop Castle in the 1960s whether the school had had a lab in those days they gave me a blank look. "A laboratory?" I expanded, hoping to jog their…
The Dashing Fox
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…
The new quarter's harvest
Meteorologically speaking, summer is still in full swing. But here at SF the new quarter waits not for the weather, so in a few days' time we'll be launched in to autumn with its bumper crop of new books and literary treasures. The…
No Hoopoes nor Golden Orioles
The long-awaited golden days of 'in the summer, when it's quiet' have finally arrived in our usually bustling little office here in Hoxton Square. Ozalids for the autumn issue and our next books have been approved and sent off up…
Happy Ever After
In uncertain times there's nothing more comforting or diverting than a good book, and sometimes there's nothing else for it but to pick up a well-thumbed favourite and settle down for a dose of escapism. So without further ado, we…
An Entire Anthology of Smells
For readers in search of something bookish to give to a father this coming 19 June, we can highly recommend our beautifully bound Slightly Foxed Edition of The High Path. In this prizewinning memoir Ted Walker recreates with unusual vividness…
Still Foxy at Fifty
Summer has arrived at Slightly Foxed! The 50th issue of The Real Reader's Quarterly will be dropping on to subscribers' doormats across the world over the next few days, just in time for the Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK.…
May News from Slightly Foxed
SF Office
The sun is shining, flowers are blooming and our little team in Hoxton Square is happily beavering away in preparation for the new quarter. The spring issue has been selling like the proverbial hot cakes (we're about to order a…
April News: Light Relief
If we know our readers – and we hope we do! – we suspect that, like us, many of you will be in need of some light relief following recent events at Blossom Hill Cottage. (The Archers was of course…
A parcel of foxed goods . . .
Proud to be stocking @FoxedQuarterly and selected paperback editions of elegantly produced, forgotten books ? pic.twitter.com/RY5pFdk7ac
— Pages of Hackney (@pagesofhackney) March 31, 2016
Literary Lapses
Spring has arrived at Slightly Foxed with the publication of our 49th issue with its cheering botanical cover. Copies should by now have dropped through subscribers' letterboxes around the world and we do hope you've enjoyed it, wherever you are. If you're a subscriber and your spring…
Celebrate Mothering Sunday with Slightly Foxed
'My mother was rather unlike other children's mothers in her ways, but though she could be embarrassing I was quite proud of her, and of my father too, because they were bold and good-looking. I should not have liked the funny-looking parents who fussed about everything that some children had.'
No More Soppy Stuff
It's always cheering to turn over the first leaf of our calendar, and even more so this year after a funny old January here at Slightly Foxed. Thank you to everyone who wrote in about the closure of our Gloucester…
Poste-Freudian Therapy
Updated 25 January 2016: The bookshop has now closed. We've loved having our bookshop on Gloucester Road. Since we took it over in 2009 it's been a repository of good reads, a relaxing place to browse, and the scene of…
An Air of Bustle and Festivity
Well, it appears to be Christmas again – our eleventh, would you believe? The 48th issue of Slightly Foxed was sent out to subscribers and bookshops on 1 December and we hope by now it's being read and enjoyed all around the world. We do think the new issue, with its intricate pen-and-ink drawing of a river in winter by Sarah Woolfenden, is especially stylish and the content is especially good too . . .
Pictures in the Mind
Emerald City Blogspot
'With their small size and brightly colored cloth covers, Slightly Foxed Editions resemble jewels in book form, a literary treasure chest…
Most Pressing Problems
The winter quarter is almost upon us . . . Issue 48 has been printed, sewn and trimmed and our printers in Yorkshire now have the mammoth task of packaging up all our subscribers' copies to be sent out towards the end of next week. Meanwhile, here in Hoxton Square, each day brings a fresh delivery of parcels to keep the office foxes on their toes. Thankfully all the lugging of boxes upstairs, sprinting for the phone, stretching to the top shelves for slipcases, wrestling with cardboard and lunging for the tape gun means we never feel too bad about having just one more mince pie, and it's always worth it when at last we open up the brown paper parcels and glimpse the new issue's artwork or the binding cloth on the latest edition for the first time . . .
Escape from France
Ronald Welch
Catch up with the Cubs
Romance in Broadmoor
We're well in to autumn here at Slightly Foxed and the season is passing by in a whirl of literary conviviality. We've been down to Whitehall to toast next year's Gladstone's Library writers in residence, up the road in Shoreditch…
Substances & Shadows
September News from Slightly Foxed
It's hard to believe autumn is here already. But the days are shortening, the air is growing brisker, and gradually the city is coming to life again as people trickle back after the long summer break. The autumn issue should now have arrived with subscribers near and far and we do hope you're all enjoying it. We so enjoy the flurry of interaction with readers that comes in the wake of the new issue so if you have any thoughts or comments (good or bad) please do write in . . .
'It will remind you of what it really means to be a reader . . .'
The Emerald City Book Review
'What makes Slightly Foxed: The Real Reader's Quarterly so great? As I perused the latest issue, I realized that in many ways it's exactly what I wish my blog to be, and what I appreciate about other blogs. Each issue contains around a dozen and a half essays in which readers of many stripes celebrate books that have moved, enlightened, impressed, or astonished them. The selection of titles is wonderfully eclectic, blithely leaping over barriers of genre, subject matter, language, geography, target age, and publication date . . .
'Quarterlies that may make you begin to drop names like Thucydides and Thoreau with aplomb . . .'
We were already delighted when the McLean & Eakin bookshop in Petoskey, Michigan started stocking Slightly Foxed and now, with this glowing recommendation from bookseller Julie, we're even happier!
'S.F. is published in the U.K. It is of the perfect size for reading in a cramped fisherman's tent, train or a comfortably squashy bed. The lay-out is stylish and the small magazine has a lovely tactile quality. The illustrations are wonderfully clever . .
Perfectly Pocketable Paperbacks
It's all quiet on the foxing front in the office this month as we await the arrival of the new quarter. Tracey and Don from our Yorkshire printers have twice been to visit with a wagonload of autumn publications and…
Hand-grenade Practice in Peking
Frances Wood
China in 1975 was a strange, undiscovered country, still half-mad from Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, when young Frances Wood boarded a plane in London to study for a year in Peking. Based on the letters she wrote home, this account of her experiences is both affecting and hilarious, a unique insight into a mysterious and painful moment in China's history. More . . .
Nicholas Carey
New this autumn in the Slightly Foxed Cubs series.
It is 1853, and on holiday in Italy, Captain Nicholas Carey is persuaded by his impulsive cousin Andrew to help three Italian revolutionaries avoid capture and escape the Papal States. After returning to England, Nicholas runs his cousin to earth in Paris, where he is still involved with the revolutionaries, and the two foil an assassination attempt on the Emperor, Napoleon III. More . . .
July News from Slightly Foxed
Summer is in full swing here at Slightly Foxed. The June issue of the quarterly has traveled far and wide to subscribers all over the globe and whether you too are off to far-flung places this summer, or simply staying at home, we…
Father, Dear Father
Not long after we launched the Slightly Foxed Editions, we came across a little gem of a book, first published in 1948 and long out of print, which we decided we must reissue. My Grandfather by Denis Constanduros is a…
Summer is almost upon us at Slightly Foxed. The printers in Yorkshire and office foxes in Hoxton are knee-deep in boxes of crisp creamy quarterlies, newly minted books and mounds of bubble-wrap and packing tape in preparation for the dispatch of the summer issue of the quarterly. Subscribers can look forward to receiving it towards the end of the first week of June, and with it be transported to Mandalay with Justin Marozzi, across the channel with Joanna Kavenna, into the world of Whigs with Michael Holroyd, to Nowhere with Travis Elborough . . . but we mustn't give too much away!
Beautifully Folded Prose
Andrew Gifford, Arundel Cathedral, early evening light, Slightly Foxed Issue 45 Intimations of spring at last! The longer days and lighter evenings have arrived on the crest of a brisk March wind, spring bulbs are bravely poking up in Hoxton…
An Education in Tolerance, Indulgence and Love
To put mothers foremost in our minds this month, we offer up Gerald Durrell's tribute to his own from the foreword to My Family & Other Animals, a woman perfectly described as 'an education in tolerance, indulgence and love' by Simon Barnes in his introduction to our new edition.
. . . I should like to pay a special tribute to my mother, to whom this book is dedicated . . .
The Golden Road to Samarkand
Here at SF our first instinct was to quietly ignore the overblown sentimentality of Saint Valentine's Day but a handful of romantic souls have suggested we mark the occasion in some way, and give a nod to love in this month's newsletter.…
Well, happy New Year to you all, dear readers! We hope you had a most enjoyable Christmas season, filled with good company, good food and plenty of reading time. Our tenth anniversary year really was a happy and fruitful one…
An Entertainment with Animals
While Oxford Street heaves with shoppers in search of Christmas deals, our Hoxton foxhole remains a haven of orderly chaos. The SF girls are calmly packing up beribboned copies of the new Winter issue and all sorts of books and other Foxed goods intended as…
'A quarterly full of delights'
'. . . a quarterly full of delights and articles about books new and old, published and out of print, beautifully illustrated and written by excellent authors . . .'
A Sublime Comedy
Winter is fast approaching here at Slightly Foxed. The streets of Hoxton Square are awash with leaves and the SF office is awash with brown paper and our new Foxed ribbon ready for Christmas gift orders . . .
'A rattling good adventure story with never a dull moment'
'1584, Santander. Twenty-year-old Harry Carey, younger son of the autocratic Earl of Aubigny, is serving on board his father's merchant ship. The Spanish are making excuses to keep the Dragon from sailing, but why? If the ship is impounded, the…
'A quarterly box of delights – always something unexpected to excite the taste buds of the bookish. I know it's planned, but it feels fortuitous and that's quite an art'
Paul Routledge, Independent
'Packed with anecdotes, reminiscences and essays about books, writers and the trade. If you love books you'll love Slightly Foxed'
I Was a Stranger
In September 1944 General Sir John 'Shan' Hackett, commander of the 4th Parachute Brigade, was severely wounded and taken prisoner during the Battle of Arnhem. I Was a Stranger is his moving account of what happened to him afterwards. It…
Look Back with Love
The leaves may not have turned but autumn is in the air here at Slightly Foxed. It's that time of the quarter again when we begin to look forward to the new issue and books, all made rather more real…
Days of Sun and Days of Rain
'There will be fair winds and foul, days of sun and days of rain. But enjoy them all.' The words of the great fell-walker and writer Alfred Wainwright rang in our ears as we gazed mournfully through the rain-spattered glass this morning . . .
A Rich Seething Hotchpotch
The Summer issue has now arrived, its cover bearing wanderlust-inducing artwork by George Devlin (an internationally renowned Glasgow-based artist who very sadly died last month). This evocative oil on canvas, 'Searing Heat: Baumes de Venise', with its brilliant colour makes us long for an afternoon 'neath the vines with a good book and glass of something cold. But travels to sunnier climes will have to wait, for summer at Slightly Foxed is a very English affair . . .
A Light Editing Job
May at Slightly Foxed is a time of great anticipation and preparation. The craftsmen and women at Smith Settle are carefully nipping, trimming, blocking and binding and here in the office we're busy shuffling books, moving boxes and clearing out…
Frivolous Foxes, Furtive Foxes, Fanciful foxes . . .
This month our newsletter is rather more than slightly foxed with a veritable skulk of foxed offerings. We're delighted to share a recording of last year's Readers' Day talk by our friend, Sir Quentin Blake, there's news of our recent…
Now the Year Has Turned
Now the year has turned and spring bulbs are bravely poking up in Hoxton Square, we're looking forward hopefully to the remainder of our tenth anniversary year. Once the usual hustle and bustle which accompanies each new quarter has subsided, we'll be in full spring-cleaning…
A Winter Wayzgoose
Team Fox is off on a winter wayzgoose this weekend. In celebration of our 10th birthday, eight vixens, seven honorary dog foxes and three spaniels are heading to a Tudor house in West Devon tomorrow. We're anticipating almighty downpours, whipping…
Pleasure, Comfort or Escape
We will soon be ten! Indeed, we can't quite believe it ourselves, but the publication of our 41st issue in March will mark a decade in print. Whilst here in the office we look ever forward to the new publications…
Round a kitchen table
Life at Slightly Foxed started with Gail, Hazel & Steph round a kitchen table and here we are, almost ten years later . . .
A Thank You to The Fox
This Winter's issue of Slightly Foxed is a very special one for us. It marks the beginning of our anniversary year – ten years since we came up with the idea for Slightly Foxed and tentatively put together our first issue. They're years in which we've got…
A Glass and a Mince Pie
Christmas is nearly here and our printers are preparing to send out the Winter issue of Slightly Foxed – our 40th! It seems no time ago – certainly not forty issues – that we were sitting round the kitchen table, arguing about a title,…
Armchair Adventures
In the last few months we've been travelling all over the country, laden with books and filled with enthusiasm as we made appearances everywhere from Shropshire to Soho. It's been wonderful, as always, to meet some of our readers, and…
Foxes, Foxes Everywhere
Where are you reading this? This month's article would have us believe that you're in the bath. However, emails are not quite as bath-friendly as the quarterly, so we hope you've chosen a drier spot to scroll through this month's missive.…
A Nightmare on Wheels
Finally the grass has returned to Hoxton Square, and we've been taking our sandwiches into the sunshine for lunch. We've got our fingers crossed for a long, hot summer, but should that fail to materialise we're recommending a visit to…
A Golden Summer
After the Death of the Masters
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. City dwellers are beginning, as Hardy said, to 'dream of the south…
There Came a Day in April
With all the hype they get, one might think that farmers' markets are a new thing. That might be the case in terms of finding a few rashers of organic beech-smoked, thick-cut, rare breed bacon in deepest central London, but…
Rattle and Clatter
Although spring itself might not be as forthcoming as we'd hope, our Spring issue is just around the corner. The giant Heidelberg machines at our printers in Yorkshire are at full tilt, all rattle and clatter as they press a…
Think Before you Click
'In the past three years Amazon has generated sales of more than £7.6 billion in the UK without attracting any corporation tax on the profits from those sales' Independent bookshops, including Slightly Foxed on Gloucester Road, do pay corporation tax on profits from…
Frogs, Books & Bears
Having moved office from Clerkenwell to Hoxton Square, we've had just enough time to unpack, find the cafetiere and hang a few pictures before the arrival of the new winter catalogues. Alongside our fourth catalogue for grown-ups we've produced our…
'Always a red-letter day when the post includes Slightly Foxed . . .'
Penelope Lively
'It's always a red-letter day when the post includes Slightly Foxed – gorgeous new cover, choice list of contents.'