The Fox In the Cupboard: A Memoir - Hardcover

Shilling, Jane

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743276817 ISBN 13: 9780743276818

Publisher: Touchstone, 2005

Synopsis

A personal account of the author's experiences with the lesser-known and sometimes humorous world of horses and hunting outlines her decision to fulfill her childhood dream of learning to ride, her lessons from a Master of Foxhounds, and her observations about the recent fox hunting ban. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

Reviews

Starred Review. In this splendid memoir, London Times columnist Shilling details her passion for foxhunting, a slow romance that begins midlife with a desire to ride, which she painstakingly learns to do, then escalates: she buys her own horse and becomes an avid rider and devoted hunter. The lure of foxhunting, a demanding and highly regimented sport with packs of hounds trained from puppyhood, isn't an American penchant (and foxhunting with hounds was recently outlawed in Britain), but Shilling brings the world of the hunt to vivid and bloody life. She lovingly and breathtakingly describes every detail, from the dressing of horse and rider and the wild determination of the hounds to the thrill of the chase, right down to the capture of the "talismanic" brush (the tail of the hunted fox). In telling the history of foxhunting, the breeding of hounds, Shilling's hunt club, her move from the city (London) to the country (Greenwich) and the transcendent emotions she feels, Shilling shifts seamlessly between past and present, personal and political. Readers might find Shilling too glib on the violence of the hunt, which she insists is neither as cruel as bullfighting nor as violent as other means of "controlling" foxes. Few may come away sharing Shilling's hunt politics, but none will fail to appreciate the provocation of her arguments nor fail to enjoy her evocative tale of her love affair with the English countryside in all its feral glory.
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When the author, a British single mother looking for a new hobby, took up the sport of foxhunting, she had no idea she would wind up in the middle of an international controversy. A sport with a long and venerable history (it dates back at least to 1327, when the rules were first codified), foxhunting came under criticism a few years ago from animal-rights activists who claimed that the hunt was not only cruel to the animals but also a barbaric and uncivilized activity, demeaning to humanity. Eventually, early in 2005, the sport was outlawed in Britain. She may have come in at the end, but Shilling quickly grew to know and love foxhunting and its quirky, eccentric subculture. Her book is an eye-opening introduction to the sport--not a defense of foxhunting but a thought--provoking acknowledgment of a vanishing part of British history. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0743276817
• ISBN 13: 9780743276818
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336