The excellent Liss Llewellyn directed this beautiful painting (Portrait of Joyce Peters c. 1926 by Gilbert Spencer) towards our inbox and for a moment we fantasised about buying it. But it’s beyond our means, so no. But isn’t it marvellous and isn’t the fabric of her jacket beautiful? 

They are also selling this painting of a house in Downshire Hill, Hampstead which is next door to the one lived in by Elizabeth Jenkins, so there is a faint Persephone connection/reason for putting it on the Letter apart from it being a simply stunning painting. But to own this one would need to be even richer. (Oh there's another, very very tenuous connection, which is that the house is opposite the one lived in by Fred Uhlman and we always have his incredible short novel Reunion among the fifty books we wish we had published.)

Do read about the Nature Towns and Cities initiative, even in Bath there are places where a bit of ‘greening’ would be very cheering; lucky Persephone readers in Yorkshire will obviously be going to The Railway Children with a real steam train, wish we could join them; there is a new book about Clotilde 'Cloto' Brewster (1874-1937), a pioneering architect who sounds fascinating (like Joyce Peters above, she is so beautifully dressed.)

And David Gentleman has a new book out called Lessons for Young Artists, we sell this in the shop because we are such huge fans of his. Here is the painting of the Persephone Books shop in Lamb’s Conduit Street David did in 2001. You can see the reflection in the window of the 'cheap and cheerful' newsagent that was there when we arrived, soon to be replaced by the achingly trendy Oliver Spencer (clothes for men).

‘Terribly disappointed that what I thought would be a typical tale – as per many of your other books – inside cover does not convey that this is about the rise of the Nazis. What a waste of £17!' This out-of-the-blue email about Crooked Cross was interesting and raised several issues. First of all, the concept that all Persephone books should be a ‘typical tale’. Presumably what is meant by this is an undemanding, un-upsetting, period book, a bit like costume drama or a Jane Austen novel, following in the footsteps of Miss Buncle’s Book or Mariana. Secondly, the criticism that the quote on the front flap does not tell the browser in the bookshop what the book is about is perfectly justified. Thirdly, the waste of money, again, fair enough (our books are more expensive in bookshops than directly from us). 

However, when Persephone Books was set up more than 25 years ago we were only going to be mail order. The fact that some of our books are nowadays available in some other book shops is delightful but has not made us change our ‘marketing’, which assumes that our readers either look at our website, read the Pamphlet (before that the Biannually) or generally know something about a book before buying it. So yes, in one sense we can understand this book-buyer’s annoyance.

But it raises the perennial issue: should our books be simply ‘a typical tale’? Should books never be ‘difficult’? How should people in a bookshop be directed towards the ‘typical tale’ (the word ‘tale’ is significant) and away from the political, the difficult, the realistic, the honest, even the historic? We have no idea. But we can think of several publishers that would suit this person better, for example Dean Street Press and its Furrowed Middlebrow imprint, or indeed a conventional publisher like Penguin which has blurbs and reviews and would immediately have flagged up that Crooked Cross is about the rise of the Nazis. For now, we can only write and apologise and suggest that before buying one of our books in a bookshop she looks at our website. Here is the first sentence of the paragraph about Crooked Cross, it couldn’t be plainer: ‘Crooked Cross describes, through the eyes of one ordinary family, the Nazis’ growth in power between December 1932 and August 1933.’ 

A 'typical tale' would certainly not refer to politics ever, so in deference to that customer (or presumably ex-customer now) may we simply, without comment, upload the cover of this week's New Statesman?

Apart from talking about the (always interesting) emails our readers send us, here in Bath we have been grateful for the relative cool inside the shop, as are our customers, and (cf. our recent Instagram post) we have been getting on with normal tasks, of replenishing the sunflowers,  looking after the work experience girls, and hoping we haven’t ignored anything crucial in the two autumn books, one grey and one Classic, which go to the printer this week. 

But the outstanding event of the last month was our first visit to Special Plants near Bath. It is obviously well-known to local gardeners, however to the mere dabbler like us it was something new and extraordinary. The garden is open on Tuesdays, there are excellent short courses on Thursdays (with subjects like sowing seeds or gardening in the shade) and of course plants and seeds can always be bought. Do explore the very good website and then set aside an hour or two to walk round this very special place.

Two of our favourite people, Charlie Lee-Potter and Samantha Ellis, have been in conversation on a podcast here. It is really really worth listening to, and this from someone who is not normally a great one for podcasts. 

We are also listening, but with horror, to the saga of the incompetent, tragic, hugely expensive, environmentally disastrous and pointless-from-the-word-go HS2 fiasco, on Radio 4 here. It's less harrowing on the radio than on television because you don't have to see the appalling destruction that has been happening for the last few years. There were some of us who have always opposed HS2 (what was the point of lopping a mere 20 minutes off the journey to Birmingham?) but apparently no one could stop the grimly determined men in hard hats. Go to the wasteland behind Euston station and weep. 

Our delicious get-away-from-it-all re-watching of the 2013 Lark Rise to Candleford is coming to an end, alas. It’s been almost as good as Anne with an E, which happily will soon be due a re-watch (we first saw it in lockdown, so in 2020). More escapism: now the James Lees-Milne diaries are finished we are reading the Lyttleton/Hart-Davis Letters, but these are not nearly so entertaining, and the Etonian smugness is enraging. However, Rupert Hart-Davis was a great publisher, he was once married to Peggy Ashcroft, and we are enjoying a quick whizz through the six volumes.

There is a new book about Claire McCardell, a designer who invented so many things to make women's lives easier eg. dresses with pockets, the jersey wrap dress, and leggings.

Brenda Milner, who was at Newnham College, Cambridge in the days before women were allowed to take degrees (!), the late 1930s, is still a neuroscientist at McGill University. Amazingly enough it was her 107th birthday on July 15th. If she hadn't married and gone to Canada she might have worked at Bletchley, like several of her Newnham contemporaries. (She might even have been the subject of one of Molly Green's novels about Bletchley eg. Wartime Wishes at Bletchley Park – highly recommended.)

Finally, how we would love to be in New York, where three Vermeer paintings are on show at the Frick. Ariella Budick wrote beautifully about them in the FT: 'These works give off the poetic emanations of life's ordinary prose, the grandeur of stilled actions, half thoughts and interrupted daydreams'. Or indeed domestic feminism, although it would be 250 years (1670 to let's say 1920) before this was even tangentially in the zeitgeist.

Nicola Beauman

8 Edgar Buildings