Persephone Books

"Persephone Books" is an independent publisher based in Bloomsbury, London. Founded in 1999 by Nicola Beauman, Perspehone has a catalogue of 78 "neglected novels, diaries, poetry, short stories, non-fiction, biography and cookery books, mostly by women and mostly dating from the early to mid-twentieth century" [Persephone catalogue no 8, 2007-2008] in paperback, with a dust jacket. Three new titles are produced every six months in Spring and Autumn, with an accompanying 'Persephone Biannually' magazine. Each book has a dove grey cover with a cream label, and has distinctive printed endpapers, often of a fabric from the original year of publication, and appropriate to the content of the book. Each comes with a matching bookmark.

In Spring 2008 Persephone Books launched their new 'Classics' range, which features their bestsellers, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Someone at a Distance and Good Evening Mrs Craven in a new paperback format with a picture on the front.

Persephone Books is based at Lamb's Conduit Street, London, with a second shop in Kensington Church Street: The Persephone Bookshop. They have a monthly book group and organise film screenings, lectures and readings. However the majority of the business is run through mail order.

Published Titles

William - An Englishman by Cicely Hamilton
Marianna by Monica Dickens
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple
Fidelity by Susan Glaspell
An Interrupted Life by Etty Hillesum
The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski
The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
Good Evening, Mrs Craven by Mollie Panter-Downes
Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson
Good Things in England by Florence White
Julian Grenfell by Nicholas Mosley
It's Hard to be Hip over Thirty and Other Tragedies of Married Life by Judith Viorst
Consequences by E M Delafield
Farewell Leicester Square by Betty Miller
Tell It to a Stranger by Elizabeth Berridge
Saplings by Noel Streatfeild
Marjory Fleming by Oriel Malet
Every Eye by Isobel English
They Knew Mr Knight by Dorothy Whipple
A Woman's Place by Ruth Adam
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
Consider the Years by Virginia Graham
Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy
Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton
The Montana Stories by Katherine Mansfield
Brook Evans by Susan Glaspell
The Children Who Lived in a Barn by Eleanor Graham
Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski
The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll
A House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair
The Carlyles at Home by Thea Holme
The Far Cry by Emma Smith
Minnie's Room by Mollie Panter-Downes
Greenery Street by Denis Mckail
Lettice Delmer by Susan Miles
The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart
Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey
Manja by Anna Gmeyner
The Priory by Dorothy Whipple
Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge
The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf
Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers
Good Food on the Aga by Ambrose Heath
Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd
The New House by Lettice Cooper
The Casino by Margaret Bonham
Bricks and Mortar by Helen Ashton
The World that was Ours by Hilda Bernstein
Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper
The Village by Marghanita Laski
Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Ferguson
They Can't Ration These by Vicomte de Mauduit
Flush by Virginia Woolf
They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple
The Hopkins Manuscript by R C Sherriff
Hetty Dorval by Ethel Wilson
There Were No Windows by Norah Hoult
Doreen by Barbara Noble
A London Child of the 1870s by Molly Hughes
How to Run Your Home Without Help by Kay Smallshaw
Princes in the Land by Joanna Cannan
The Woman Novelist and Other Stories by Diana Gardner
Alas Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson
Gardner's Nightcap by Muriel Stuart
The Fortnight in September by R C Sherriff
The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes
Journal of Katherine Mansfield by Katherine Mansfield
Plats du Jour by Patience Gray and Primrose BoydThe Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett
House-Bound by Winifred Peck
The Young Pretenders by Edith Henrietta Fowler
The Closed Door and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple
On the Other Side: Letters to my Children from Germany 1940-46 by Mathilde Wolff-Monckeberg
The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby
Daddy's Gone A-Hunting by Penelope Mortimer
A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914-39 by Nicola Beauman

References

External links

* [http://www.persephonebooks.co.uk/ Persephone Books official site]
* [http://www.bookslut.com/features/2004_09_003116.php Review of Perspehone Books at bookslut.com]
* [http://www.zyworld.com/albionmagazineonline/persephone.htm Feature article on Persephone Books in Albion Magazine]