Dr Felicity James, author of Charles Lamb, Coleridge and Wordsworth: Reading Friendship in the 1790s and current custodian of Charles’s writing chair, introduces the Slightly Foxed editors to siblings at the heart of a literary circle. In their Tales from Shakespeare , gentle-hearted drunken-dog Charles wrote the tragedies and Mary, often chided for laughing, the comedies, and together they penned letters using different coloured inks. From a murder in the home and time in private asylums to con...
Oct 15, 2020•44 min•Ep. 24
The food writer and chef Olivia Potts joins the Slightly Foxed editors for a literary banquet. Olivia was a barrister for five years before enrolling at Le Cordon Bleu, becoming a cookery columnist on The Spectator and writing A Half Baked Idea , a memoir with recipes. From finding consolation in cooking and precision in pâtisserie to nostalgia-soaked blancmange and family dinners in the Cazalet Chronicles, the conversation flows, welcoming Jane Grigson, Elizabeth David, Charles Dickens and the ...
Sep 15, 2020•43 min•Ep. 23
Small but discerning, choosing passion over fashion, Little Toller Books shares an independent spirit with Slightly Foxed . Jon Woolcott joins us from this publishing house based in a converted old dairy in Dorset, and charts the rise from cottage industry origins to a wide, prized backlist. With roots in rural writing, Little Toller has branched out to seek unusual voices, resurrecting the life of the wood engraver Clifford Webb, turning landfill into prose, uncovering Edward Thomas’s hidden ph...
Aug 15, 2020•38 min•Ep. 22
Justin Marozzi, a travel writer, historian and journalist who’s lived in Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Darfur, joins the Slightly Foxed editors on a journey through North Africa and the Middle East. His discovery of a nineteenth-century account of an expedition to Libya in a bookshop in Tripoli led to his crossing of the Sahara by camel, against the advice of Wilfred Thesiger. From dual chronicles of the desert penned by Rosita Forbes and Ahmed Hassanein Bey and tales of books hurled int...
Jul 15, 2020•40 min•Ep. 21
Slightly Foxed Editors Gail and Hazel take us between the pages of the magazine, bookmarking articles along the way. Crack the spine of the quarterly to discover T. H. White taking flying lessons, smutty book titles, a passion for romantic ruins, John Berger shadowing a remarkable GP, a rebellious Mitford ‘rescued’ by a destroyer, a night to remember on the Titanic and much more besides. From correcting proofs to welcoming writers with a host of experiences, the story of putting together an issu...
Jun 15, 2020•37 min•Ep. 20
Tim Pears, a writer rooted in the landscape of Devon, takes Slightly Foxed to the West Country. From working at his local library and reading an author a week instead of taking his A Levels to winning the Hawthornden Prize for his first novel, by way of spells as a farm labourer, nursing assistant and night porter, Tim Pears has written eleven novels, watched blacksmiths at work, walked the routes of his characters, balanced research with imagination and chronicled the past as a realist rather t...
May 15, 2020•41 min•Ep. 19
The great prose stylist of the 20th century, monster, performer? Biographer and literary journalist Selina Hastings and writer and critic Alexander Waugh reveal the many reputations of Evelyn Waugh with the Slightly Foxed editors. From a pathological fear of boredom, hallucinations provoked by doses of bromide and cheques bouncing at the Ritz to his relationships conducted through letters, his genius for sharp satire and love of gossip, the conversation brings to light the darkness and humour of...
Apr 15, 2020•45 min•Ep. 18
Dame Margaret Drabble joins us at the Slightly Foxed table as we celebrate her life in writing. From taking up her pen in the 1960s as a young mother alone in her kitchen to feeling part of a movement with Nell Dunn, Margaret Forster and Edna O’Brien, to editing The Oxford Companion to English Literature without the help of a computer and eschewing the Booker Prize, Margaret Drabble sees writing as both an illness and a trade, finding black humour in ageing and joy in jigsaw puzzles along the wa...
Mar 15, 2020•44 min•Ep. 17
Biographer and academic Jane Ridley and screenwriter and novelist Daisy Goodwin join the Slightly Foxed Editors to reveal the wealth to be found in royal biographies, memoirs and historical novels. From the remarkable diaries of Queen Victoria and the extraordinary life of Empress Elisabeth of Austria to Prince Albert’s cashmere breeches, a cottage meal at Sissinghurst with the Queen Mother, and Edward VII’s many mistresses, the parade of tales about the lives and loves of royal people roams far...
Feb 15, 2020•38 min•Ep. 16
As we turn the page to a new decade, we’ve made some New Year resolutions. John Mitchinson and Andy Miller of Backlisted Podcast join the Slightly Foxed Editors to bring new life to old books, leading us off the beaten track with wide-ranging reading recommendations . From Frank O’Connor’s letters, Selina Hastings’s lives and Barbara Tuchman’s histories to the poetry of John Berryman, Gayl Jones’s Corregidora and Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit , they journey through genres t...
Jan 15, 2020•39 min•Ep. 15
What sparks a lifelong love of reading? Francis Spufford, author of The Child that Books Built , and Emily Drabble of the children’s reading charity BookTrust, delve into bookshelves past and present with the Slightly Foxed Editors to understand the alchemy that ignites the spark. From books as seductive objects, the haphazardness of alphabetical organization and disappearing libraries to the joys of cover-to-cover reading and books being doorways to new worlds, the conversation reveals what a p...
Dec 15, 2019•37 min•Ep. 14
In the parochial lies the universal, or does it? Join us on a trip to the British countryside as we plough into the matter of nature, landscape and the rural world in literature to find out more. Together with Juliet Blaxland, author of Wainwright Prize shortlisted The Easternmost House , and Jay Armstrong of Elementum Journal , the Slightly Foxed Editors and host Philippa share tales of living on the edge of eroding cliffs, pioneering bird photographers, ancient arboreal giants, guerrilla rewil...
Nov 15, 2019•39 min•Ep. 13
Gail, Hazel and host Philippa enter the world of second-hand bookselling with Chris Saunders of Henry Sotheran’s, the world’s oldest antiquarian bookshop. From folios to quartos, half-binding to cockling, foxing to forgery, they tackle trade terminology and share tales of rarities and curiosities. The conversation ranges far and wide in the typical Slightly Foxed manner – from Parisian romances and the libraries of English country houses to outsized ornithological specimens and books of unusual ...
Oct 15, 2019•41 min•Ep. 12
Gail, Hazel and host Philippa are transported to Orkney as they explore the life and works of the poet and novelist George Mackay Brown OBE. Together with his biographer Maggie Fergusson and Colin Waters of the Scottish Poetry Library, they bring to light a writer who was at once a solitary soul and a raconteur, a lover and a drinker, a member of the Edinburgh literati yet fame-shy. From the oft-recited ‘Hamnavoe’ to the Booker-nominated ‘Beside the Ocean of Time’ Mackay Brown’s work sings of hi...
Sep 15, 2019•40 min•Ep. 11
Just who are literary festivals for and why do we love them so much? Gail, Steph and host Philippa go backstage with Anne Oxborough of the well-established Ways With Words and Michael Pugh of recent start-up the Llangwm Literary Festival to find out more. From the delights of surprise-hit speakers, post-show river swims, vodka-fuelled poetry sessions and the rise of fancy food stalls to the horrors of airborne green rooms, bacon-roll bust-ups and rail replacement buses, the conversation ranges f...
Aug 15, 2019•39 min•Ep. 10
Gail, Hazel and host Philippa dig into the subject of garden writing with the journalist and social historian Ursula Buchan and Matt Collins, nature writer and Head Gardener at London’s Garden Museum. The conversation meanders convivially in the usual Slightly Foxed manner, via daredevil plant-hunters, early wild gardening advocates such as Gertrude Jekyll, William Robinson and Vita Sackville-West, and the passing passions and fashions of garden design, with a peek over the hedge at Christopher ...
Jul 15, 2019•36 min•Ep. 9
Hazel, Jennie and host Philippa explore the art of travel writing with the acclaimed author and biographer Sara Wheeler, and Barnaby Rogerson of the well-loved independent publisher Eland Books. Buckle-up and join us on an audio adventure that takes in a coach trip around England, an Antarctic sojourn, a hairy incident involving a Victorian lady and her trusty tweed skirt and a journey across Russia in the footprints of its literary greats, with nods to Bruce Chatwin, Isabella Bird, Norman Lewis...
Jun 15, 2019•39 min•Ep. 8
Gail, Steph and Anna go behind the scenes with booksellers Brett Wolstencroft of Daunt Books and Kathleen Smith of Topping & Co. Bath to talk about the reality and romance of life running two of the country’s finest bookshops. Andrew Hawkins recounts the tale of a London publisher who tried his hand at repping and ended up in a spot of bother with a drunken poet in Fife, and there’s the usual round-up of recommended reading and news from Hoxton Square. The digits in brackets following each l...
May 15, 2019•39 min•Ep. 7
Gail, Hazel, Jennie and host Philippa are joined at the table by eminent biographer Adam Sisman to discuss the delicate business of delving into the lives of others – warts and all or, sometimes, all warts no all. The actor Nigel Anthony lends his voice to Edward Lear’s surreal verbal contortions, unearthing the deep sorrow that hid beneath the nonsense. The digits in brackets following each listing refer to the minute and second they are mentioned. (Episode duration: 38 minutes; 6 seconds) Book...
Apr 15, 2019•38 min•Ep. 6
Gail, Hazel, Anna and Donna Coonan of Virago Modern Classics gather round the table to talk about giving new life to forgotten voices, and Helen Bourne heads for the Pyramids with a young Priscilla Napier. The digits in brackets following each listing refer to the minute and second they are mentioned. (Episode duration: 33 minutes; 31 seconds) Books Mentioned • Slightly Foxed Issue 61 (2:02) • Priscilla Napier, A Late Beginner (4:41) • L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables (12:00) • Noel Streat...
Mar 15, 2019•34 min•Ep. 5
Gail, Hazel and Jennie talk to the artist and illustrator (and master of pastiche) David Eccles about the craft of marrying image and text. The actress Petra Markham takes to the airwaves with Posy Simmonds, and the printmaker Angie Lewin recalls her experience of being commissioned for a Slightly Foxed cover. Books Mentioned Hugh Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler Richard Kennedy, A Boy at the Hogarth Press & A Parcel of Time Gwen Raverat, Period Piece E. H. Shepard, Drawn from Memory an...
Feb 15, 2019•32 min•Ep. 4
In Episode 3: Stet, Gail, Hazel and Anna discuss the art of editing with author and creative writing teacher Sue Gee, and Helen Bourne delves into the dark side of Beatrix Potter. www.foxedquarterly.com/pod Books Mentioned Our series of historical novels by Ronald Welch can be found here Issue 60 of Slightly Foxed Our series of Rosemary Sutcliff’s books will be published in September, starting with The Eagle of the Ninth Sue Gee’s novels include Spring Will Be Ours (1988), Reading in Bed (2007) ...
Jan 15, 2019•33 min•Ep. 3
In Episode 2: The Oldest Paper in the World Gail, Hazel and Jennie talk to Frances Wood, librarian, sinologue and former head of the Chinese Collection at the British Library; Andrew Hawkins recounts the story of the oldest paper in the world; and we find out which books our readers are hoping for this Christmas. www.foxedquarterly.com/pod Books Mentioned Ernest H. Shepard illustrated Winnie-the-Pooh and Wind in the Willows. His memoirs are Drawn from Memory and Drawn from Life A Country Doctor’...
Dec 15, 2018•33 min•Ep. 2
In the first episode of The Slightly Foxed Podcast, SF founders Gail Pirkis, Hazel Wood and Steph Allen meet author Jim Ring round the kitchen table at No. 53 to remember how it all began, and Veronika Hyks gives voice to Liz Robinson’s article on Anne Fadiman’s well-loved Ex Libris. www.foxedquarterly.com/pod Books Mentioned Erskine Childers by Jim Ring is available directly from publishers Faber & Faber Second-hand copies of Anne Fadiman’s Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader are avai...
Nov 15, 2018•31 min•Ep. 1
The independent-minded quarterly that combines good looks, good writing and a personal approach. Slightly Foxed introduces its readers to books that are no longer new and fashionable but have lasting appeal. Good-humoured, unpretentious and a bit eccentric, it’s more like a well-read friend than a literary magazine. Come behind the scenes with the staff of Slightly Foxed to learn what makes this unusual literary magazine tick, meet some of its varied friends and contributors, and hear their pers...
Nov 07, 2018•2 min
