We have some news.

This autumn we are opening a second Persephone bookshop – in London, in Fitzrovia to be precise.

Nothing will change in Bath. The publishing and mail order will still happen there and the bookshop will remain the same. But at 1 Scala Street, W1, you will also be able to browse all our titles and a member of the Persephone team will be on hand with advice and suggestions. In due course there will be a book group and occasional events at lunchtime and in the early evening.

We had not actually been planning this. But by chance we heard about a 1767 four-storey house behind Tottenham Court Road that had become available. It's in Fitzrovia, which is a fascinating area of London, as fascinating in its way as Bloomsbury, its neighbour. Many well-known artists and painters lived there over the centuries; the Omega Workshop, the source of several of our endpapers and much aesthetic inspiration, was nearby on Fitzroy Square, which was Virginia Woolf's home for a few years too; in 1925 Marie Stopes opened the first ever birth control clinic round the corner; and the suffrage play A Pageant of Great Women by Cicely Hamilton, author of PB no. 1 William – an Englishman, premiered at the Scala Theatre next door in 1909. All in all, we felt that Persephone Books would fit in rather well.

We are also delighted that our conservationist instincts can now combine with our love for twentieth-century women writers. This amazingly unwrecked eighteenth-century building does need a lot of work but what fun it will be restoring it. The various permissions required in terms of planning and zoning mean that opening the bookshop may not be an entirely straightforward process and may have to happen in stages, which is why we don’t have an exact schedule for it yet. But we are up for the challenge.

1 Scala Street was previously the site of Pollock’s Toy Museum. This was set up by Marguerite Fawdry (1912-95) after the war and moved from Covent Garden to Fitzrovia in 1969, where it quickly became a much-loved institution that many Londoners used to visit with their children on a rainy Saturday afternoon. We are so proud to be the new custodians of the wonderful building that was its home for fifty years.

Please keep an eye on our emails, website and social media for updates on when Persephone Books London will be opening, but we are aiming for the beginning of November, albeit probably only for three or four days a week to begin with and in the spirit of a pop-up until all the necessary permissions have been obtained. Either way, we hope you will come and visit soon.

Best wishes,

All of us at Persephone Books.