Slightly Foxed #87: 'Paradise Lost'

by Gail Pirkis (Editor), Hazel Wood (Editor)

Genres: Literature

94 pages, Paperback

Published September 1, 2025

Reviews

[Colin]

Another box of delights from Slightly Foxed. Particularly pleasing to see an excellent piece by Brandon Robshaw on the almost-forgotten master of the short story, A. E. Coppard, a writer quite unlike any other who was much admired and respected in his time (the edition of his Collected Stories that I have has an introduction by Doris Lessing, for instance) and, but for his preference for the short form - unfortunately not now much favoured, at least by publishers - would almost certainly have had a celebrated revival by now. Other stand out items from this edition include a re-evaluation of Orwell’s Coming up for Air, Mathew Lyons on Louis MacNeice’s brilliant poetic record of the run up to war in 1939, Autumn Journal; and Michael Barber on Geoffrey Wellum’s First Light, his account of life as a teenage Spitfire pilot during the Second World War, a book that he didn’t sit down to write until he was in his eighties.

[Megan]

A gem as always, aside from these two lines in a review of a Rosamunde Pilcher book:

“It would be a mistake to dismiss Pilcher — as some critics have done — as a middlebrow novelist who wrote about women for women. She is neither snobbish nor meretricious and while the world of September is, admittedly, well-insulated, it is neither smug nor complacent.”

What? Has this reviewer even read any “middlebrow novelist[s] who wrote about women for women”?? I immediately guessed that the reviewer must be a man and yes, he is.

I feel an urge to alert Persephone Books to this review and ask Nicola/Fran Beauman to respond.

[D'face]

The latest issue of Slightly Foxed opens with a recommendation for another George Orwell book, and then reviews a war memoir published by SF. But it was the review of AE Coppard’s short stories that took my fancy, so those have joined the TBR pile. Finally there is a review of a book with a wonderful title: How to Talk About Books You Haven’t Read. Overall I did not find this issue of SF as engaging as some earlier editions, so I will return to those.

[Noits]

Seasonally, I am behind … but -this slim volume never fails to deliver sharply observed, sometimes nostalgic, off times warmly critical insights into the books of yesteryear. And as ever, my TBR pile has grown.

[Catie]

**3.5 Stars**

[Marie-Clare]

Superb collection of recommendations.