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A parallel in pictures to the world of Persephone Books.
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12 May 2021
And on the same beautifully-done timeline about women who worked for the Guardian, Winifred Holtby, author of PB No. 76 The Crowded Street, comes in in 1928 as author of a column (which can be read online by clicking on the arrow) about why men should do more child care. This was incredibly ahead of its time, but alas nothing changed until the1980s; which shows how long it takes before visionaries are listened to... The piece is profound and we shall reprint it in the next Biannually (published in October).
11 May 2021
Madeline Linford (whose short story was reprinted in the last Biannually, and we shall republish one of her five novels in the near future) was a courageous foreign correspondent who went to typhus-ridden Poland in 1919 to report on the postwar humanitarian crisis there; she also pioneered film reviews. In 1922, when the women’s page was launched, she became its editor, the sole woman on the editorial staff. 'My briefing was lucid and firm. The page must be readable, varied and always aimed at the intelligent woman.' Miss Linford, as she was known to all, paved the way for the trailblazing writers who would find a home on the Guardian's women's page.
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10 May 2021
The Guardian has been celebrating its 200th birthday and has been doing so with great elan; this week on the Post we pick out five women who have worked for it. First of all, Emily Hobhouse (1860-1926): 'During the second Boer war of 1899-1902, when Britain was in a jingoistic frenzy, the Guardian ran a campaign for peace, and reports by Emily Hobhouse exposed British concentration camps...the paper thereby demonstrated beyond any doubt that it stood up for its principles.' More detail about Emily herself here. And here (scroll down to 1899) is one of her incredible reports 'from inside the internment centres where Boer women and children face squalor and starvation.'
7 May 2021
So today is the last day of our tenancy in Lamb's Conduit Street. We are very sad and it was quite upsetting seeing it swept, painted and polished and locking the door for the last time. But Edgar Buildings is being rather magical. This is our favourite detail of all. Please imagine the balconette, as it's apparently called, without window boxes (ours will be on the ground in front of the shop window)) and notice the way the 1923 horizontal decoration echoes them – we love this unwavering link from 1761 to 1923 to 2021. This is what the English Heritage website says here: 'Shopfront 1923 by WA Williams, with mutule cornice, triglyph friezes to pilasters and raised and fielded six-panel door with cobweb fanlight to left.' A mutule cornice is a thing apparently, as is a triglyph frieze; but why no mention of this wonderful art deco decoration which spreads across the shop front? That is surely worth a sentence of its own.
6 May 2021
We have the basement where we store the books. Although it seems a shame not to use it as a kitchen since there is the original dresser (with the curious little window that goes through to a very small room, presumably once the pantry) and two fireplaces, one with the bread oven that can be seen here. And the original flagstones. The room next door has a beautiful fireplace, presumably the housekeeper sat (and even slept) in here. This has now become the bookmark room.
5 May 2021
So this is the new shop on Day One - slight chaos but the recreation of Lamb's Conduit Street in Edgar Buildings is nearly complete.
4 May 2021
Today the shop opens in Bath, so this week on the Post: pictures of our new home. We realise this might be slightly irritating for our readers around the world who aren't going to be coming to Bath any time soon, if at all. But we hope, and have been told by our readers, that imagining the space from which the books begin their journey round the world gives them more, well, soul than if they were sent from a soulless warehouse.