To celebrate seventy years since the Queen became Queen Elizabeth the Second (we are great royalists at Persephone Books), this week on the Post we celebrate the Tudors, inspired by the excellent exhibition at the Holburne in Bath. Today, naturally, here is Queen Elizabeth the First c. 1588 in a painting, normally at the National Portrait Gallery, by an unidentified artist, but what an artist!

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here are so many marvellous paintings by Harold Knight to choose from but this is an especial favourite –  for obvious reasons: The Reader 1910

Here is a self-portrait, what a genial and interesting looking man. It's 1923 and at the National lPortrait Gallery.

Girl Writing 1931 is at the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool. Sometimes in idle moments we plan which Persephone Classic to do next and which book to use this for -  maybe Diary of a Provincial Lady?

Harold Knight's beautiful Girl Reading 1932 is of course on the cover of the Classic edition of Cheerful Weather for the Wedding.

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t's often hard to explain why we reprint 'mostly' women writers ie. we have some men on our list eg. R C Sherriff and John Coates.  There are several reasons but mainly that we don't want to be associated with any kind of rigid, uncompromising feminism; and in any case E M Forster is our favourite novelist. So this week on the Post Harold Knight: he was married to Laura Knight but while she became hugely well known and popular, he was always in the background. But what an incredible painter he was! First of all his marvellous portrait of Laura Knight that was sold at Sotheby's three years ago, present whereabouts unknown,

And by 1830 Bath as we know it had been built. Although this map again turns the city round (nowadays we would shift if round to the left). But The Circus is a visible landmark, albeit with Gay Street pointing to the left rather than south as we know it nowadays. Or is it south? This whole question of who makes the decision  about which way a map should 'point' is an interesting one to ponder...