‘I wondered for a time who this brilliant “Mrs Bedford” could be,’ wrote Evelyn Waugh to Nancy Mitford on reading Sybille Bedford’s first novel, A Legacy.

The twentieth-century European writer Sybille Bedford could be many things: traveller, gourmand, oenophile, court reporter, Booker Prize-shortlisted novelist. In this month’s literary podcast the Slightly Foxed team discover the pleasures and landscapes of Bedford’s life, loves and writing with her biographer, Selina Hastings. The daughter of a German Baron, from childhood Bedford travelled endlessly, living in Germany, Italy, France, Portugal and Britain. Claiming to suffer from sloth and love of life, she deified her friend Aldous Huxley, had assets frozen by the Nazi regime, was funded by Martha Gellhorn and was known for her many lovers, all while experiencing the ‘tearing, crushing, defeating agony’ of writing. From a delicious account of a visit to Don Otavio in Mexico and vivid reportage of the Lady Chatterley’s Lover obscenity trial to the autobiographical novel Jigsaw, we see the world through Bedford’s observant eye and voracious appetite.

And we continue our travels with a trip to the Heath Robinson Museum in London, exploring the cartoonist’s imagination through electric egg poachers, Christmas cracker-pulling machines and other curious contraptions, before sharing reading recommendations for Italo Calvino’s short stories that follow the cycle of the seasons, and an enlightening experiment with fiction from Francis Spufford. (Episode duration: 43 minutes; 56 seconds) 

We may be able to get hold of second-hand copies of the out-of-print titles listed below. Please get in touch with Jess in the Slightly Foxed office for more information.

Sybille Bedford: An Appetite for Life, Selina Hastings

A Visit to Don Otavio, Sybille Bedford (12:00)

A Legacy, Sybille Bedford (17:41)

The Best We Can Do, Sybille Bedford is out of print (21:23)

The Trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Sybille Bedford (21:33)

Jigsaw, Sybille Bedford (28:51)

Aldous Huxley: A Biography, Sybille Bedford is out of print (29:40)

Very Heath Robinson, Adam Hart-Davis (38:34)

Marcovaldo, Italo Calvino (39:10)

Light Perpetual, Francis Spufford (41:02)

Other available books by Sybille Bedford

Bruised, Shocked, but Elated, Selina Hastings on Sybille Bedford, A Visit to Don Otavio, Issue 69 (12:00)

A Bath with a View, Caroline Chapman on Sybille Bedford, A Legacy, Issue 38 (17:41)

Sybille Bedford on Desert Island Discs, recorded in 1998 (9.09)

Heath Robinson Museum (36:20)

Opening music: Preludio from Violin Partita No.3 in E Major by Bach

The Slightly Foxed Podcast is hosted by Philippa Lamb and produced by Podcastable