'Well… it was Christmas, the first Christmas without war or gross trouble in the house. Audrey and Adam should have something to remember this year, something bright, something magic… Over the market town the smoke hung like the steam over a saucepan… They bought oranges, and chocolate mice, and soap babies, and penny whistles for the stockings of Audrey and Adam. They piled them all into the car and drove off through the snowy, steamy dark. They felt warm and happy because for the first time they had got everything they had meant to get and still had a little money in hand. Ahead of them and behind them tipsy, happy Fords were wallowing home through the slush.'

– PB no. 41 Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge (1933)

Welcome to this year's Christmas offer from Persephone Books.

Our Christmas offer for 2025 is a Persephone book of your choice wrapped in one of three specially-designed new tea towels, tied up with chic brown garden twine, with a bookmark and a card tucked inside (pictured above). We can either hand-write a gift message for you or leave the card blank for you to add your own. The cost is £30 including postage (or three for £85).

The three new tea towels (pictured right) feature the endpapers from PB no. 54 They Can’t Ration These, PB no. 72 House-Bound and PB no. 118 Every Good Deed and Other Stories. The fabrics were designed by, respectively, Alma Ramsey-Hosking, Eric Ravilious and an anonymous dress designer (we sometimes have the dress on display in the Persephone bookshop).They have been manufactured for us by Re-Wrap, a social enterprise in south India that manufactures organic cotton products in a way that impacts positively on its women suppliers and employees. Gift-wrapping our books this way is of course kinder to the environment than using paper, since the tea towel can then be used for wiping away the mince pie crumbs or doing the drying up after Christmas lunch. (The tea towels are currently not available to purchase by themselves, but will be after Christmas.)

Not sure which of our 153 titles to choose? Here are a few suggestions or do get in touch. Alternatively, if you want to keep things simple, you could choose the matching book to the tea towel: PB no. 54 They Can’t Ration These is a cookery book about foraging, PB no. 72 House-Bound is a “supremely funny” novel and PB no. 118 Every Good Deed is a collection of Dorothy Whipple short stories, so they make a very pleasing trio.

Our Christmas offer can be purchased via the website, by telephone, by mail, or in person at our Bath shop.

How to order the Christmas offer on the website:

(Regular Persephone readers will notice that the Christmas offer is set up a little differently this year. We hope it is an improvement.)

Head to the page for the book you want, then in the 'Order This Book' section, select 'Christmas Offer' from the drop-down Gift Wrapping menu. Pick a tea towel, then click 'Add to basket' and go to check out. We'll do the rest.

Overseas customers: our Christmas Offer is available to send overseas but the price shown at checkout, whilst it does include postage, will be significantly more than £30, depending on where you are, due to the ever-increasing cost of international shipping, customs and tariffs.

Wishing our readers a very Merry Christmas from all of us here at Persephone Books.