A review by careinthelibrary
Lady Into Fox by David Garnett

4.0

David Bennett’s novella Lady into Fox, published in 1922, narrates a fable of metamorphosis of a well-bred Englishwoman into an increasingly bestial vixen. The tale can be read as an allegory of the degradation of upper-class English culture into the savage wilderness that surrounds Oxfordshire. This regression of Richard and Silvia Tebrick into the seemingly uncultured, zoophilic life corroborates with the idea of bestiality as a perverse sexual act. Garnett outlines that animals are creatures that, if humans engage in sexual contact with them, debase humanity and degrade human culture (i.e., civilization); in that way, Garnett celebrates human morality, cleanliness, and the upper-class English culture at the same time that his allegory critiques these standards. Consequently, Garnett emphasizes human supremacy and beasts’ immorality, dirtiness, and savagery by his shaming of Mr. Tebrick’s night of bestial passion, and his assumption that when Mr. Tebrick is with Silvia and with her cubs, he is less cultured than when he returns to his former lifestyle at the end of the novella.