Delightedly Foxed

Every Thursday, regular as clockwork, The TLS (Graham's favourite literary journal) flops through the letterbox. This week, I was delighted to find that it contained a flyer advertising Slightly Foxed, which is a far more important publication as it is my favourite literary journal. (Note impartial and scholarly flair of my adjudication. Not). But how's this for an advertising leaflet?

As I sat clapping my hands with glee at the thought of the treat in store (seriously, this journal is a real treat); it struck me that I'd seen this painting somewhere else (though, maybe, sans lupine passenger, and with a white horse--rather than a white fox-- in the background...)


Aha! Here it is:
Eric Ravilious, Train Landscape (1939)
(available as a greetings card, see here), but also available as a full page illustration in this book (see p63) which I am currently re-reading for at least the fifth time. The most recent issue of Persephone Books' Biannually had Russell Sidney Reeves' The Felixstowe to Ipswich Coach on its front cover, (see page 269 of The Gentle Art of Domesticity) and acknowledged their debt to Jane Brocket (aka Yarnstorm) for bringing the picture to their attention. Has she had the same effect on the Slightly Foxed team?

Whatever the case, I'm still bouncing up-and-down in anticipation of my favourite, quarterly, treat....