Britain's new prime minister read English at Cambridge (here’s an interview with one of his tutors, John Mullan) and we are very happy about this, not just because it shows he reads (even reads novels!) but because of what we humans learn from literature ie. qualities which are often alien to politicians such as humility, empathy, kindness and trust. It’s what one of the Cambridge English literature teachers, FR Leavis, used to call ‘moral intelligence’: literature makes us understand our fellow humans better, it makes us morally intelligent. Maybe like Obama, Andy Burnham will release a list of his best books of 2026. Whatever, he reads. So we feel optimistic.

Which is a nice feeling because, as anyone who reads this Letter will know (and thank you as always for taking the time to do so), the adventure that has been Persephone Books is about far more than simply getting forgotten books back into print. It’s been about values. It’s why, she says repetitiously, publishing is political. And, as Tanjil Rashid wrote in the New Statesman, in a piece celebrating the fact that Burnham read English at university: ‘Literature is political. That we know. But we forget that politics, in turn, has a literary angle, the words pledged in manifestos, delivered at the despatch box, enshrined in law…Since the buildings blocks of any vision are words, it’s not too fanciful to think a leader with a more poetic cast of mind might sense, and articulate, national feeling more successfully.’  

The paradox is that despite the horribleness of what we casually refer to as ‘the news’, we still cheerfully read new novels, go to the theatre and the cinema, and listen to Chopin: a paradox of empathy, or lack of it, we can never quite understand or reconcile. It’s rather like Andy Burnham vowing to remove rough sleepers from the street. We so agree with him. And yet, and yet, when we come across one in the street we callously walk past and go cheerfully on our way.  It must be a necessary defence mechanism (because if one was continually upset about the ‘news’, the rough sleeper, one couldn’t function).

So, yes, ‘normal’ life goes on. We have just sent the October book, Her Son’s Wife by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, to the printer. The Pamphlet is being written. The proof reading has begun of the April 2027 books (A Week Like Any Other by Natalya Baranskaya and the third of the Sally Carson trilogy, A Traveller Came By). The October 2027 book has gone to be typed up (that does sound old-fashioned, but OCR creates such a huge number of errors that we have reverted to the old system). Today in the office we discussed two books that Jess and Fran had just read and whether we could/should do them in 2028. And on we go.

And what has engaged our brains culturally? Well when it was very, very hot we watched the oh so enjoyable Little House on the Prairie: it’s certainly not for everyone, but then, at the other end of the scale, neither is The Odyssey cf. this article by Catherine Shoard about why women might not enjoy it.

We planted a Philadelphus ‘Belle Etoile’ as recommended by Robin Lane Fox in the Financial Times, widely available but for example at Crocus here; we are making plans to go to the the fascinating-sounding Trent Park (painting by Rex Whistler)

and to the Enid Marx exhibition, beautifully written about by Cambridge Imprint. The photo of Enid Marx is taken from the Cambridge Imprint website, and below is the lovely 'collector's drawers' based on one of her designs, available here. 

Alas, Juliet Gardiner, one of our esteemed preface writers, has died.

Juliet's obituary was written by another of our preface writers, David Kynaston. He quite rightly praised her as a historian. But what he didn’t mention was that Juliet had such an incredible sense of style: her clothes and her surroundings were always SO beautiful. That’s presumably why her books were so good: she always mixed the historical and the domestic with unerring insight and good taste. She wrote prefaces to three of our most beloved books: The Village, To Bed with Grand Music and Greengates. Btw, anyone who has read The Fortnight in September and loved it: we thoroughly recommend Greengates, it has very much the same tone and feel. And then of course there is The Hopkins Manuscript in which Mr Hopkins is Mr Stevens all over again.

There was a fabulous article in The Times about The Fortnight in September. Giles Coren stumbled on it while looking up Kazuo Ishiguro (a great fan). So he bought it; read it; went to Clapham Junction; took the train to Bognor Regis; found a restaurant there; wrote it up in order to be able to file his usual restaurant review; and meanwhile praised Fortnight to the skies. This gave us a delightful and busy few days sending copies all over the world. Now we are thinking of sending a copy to 10 Downing Street. The truth is we would rather Andy Burnham did not have a holiday at this juncture (yes, yes, please don’t bother to write in and say this is unfair on the poor man), however we would allow him a day trip, book in hand, to Bognor.  

Sadly, we are not having an actual holiday (although this is not for the reason that we have taken on an important new job). But we shall have several short trips, for example we plan the train from Bath to Weymouth; a swim, then fish and chips; bus from Weymouth to Lyme Regis (apparently the most beautiful bus journey in the world); a fish supper and night in a B&B, and back again the next day (possibly stopping off in Poundbury, which we love); all the while feeling a bit smug about the airports avoided, the passport queues by-passed and the packing that doesn’t have to be done. Nevertheless, we wish every single Persephone reader who is going 'properly' on holiday a wonderful and relaxing and generally restorative time.

Nicola Beauman,

8 Edgar Buildings,

Bath.