Past Events

Events in 2008

On Wednesday March 26th Christina Hardyment talked at a Lunch about her newly-reissued book Dream Babies: Childcare Advice from John Locke to Gina Ford; she drew upon old favourites such as The Home-Maker and Hostages to Fortune.

On Thursday February 28th our lunchtime speaker focused on some of our WWII books. Juliet Gardiner, who has written extensively about the period and was historical advisor on the film of Atonement, talked about the film (in which a Persephone book can be seen right at the end) and about titles such as Few Eggs and No Oranges, Saplings and A House in the Country.

On Thursday January 24th 2008 there was another showing of the 1924 silent film of The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher at the British Film Institute 21 Stephen Street W1. Lunch was served at 1pm, the film was shown at 2 and lasted for about 75 minutes and then tea was served. This was a unique and extraordinary film which was made available to us through the kindness of Kevin Brownlow.

Events in 2007

In December Jane Brocket, author of The Gentle Art of Domesticity, talked at a Lunch about the domestic arts (knitting, crocheting, baking, quilting, a great deal of reading) as practised by her. Jane’s Persephone cup-cakes were served.

On November 15th we celebrated On the Other Side by Mathilde (‘Tilli’) Wolff- Mönckeberg; Jessica Atkinson talked about her great-grandmother's life and Chris Beauman, who wrote the Afterword, set the book in its wartime context.

On November 20th Penelope Lively gave  the Third Persephone Lecture on ‘House and Home in Fiction’  at the Art Workers Guild 6 Queen Square WC1.

On Thursday October 4th there was a showing at the British Film Institute 21
Stephen Street W1 of two WW2 films, Went the Day Well? (1942) and Diary for Timothy (1946). There was a talk beforehand setting the films in the context of
wartime Persephone books such as Few Eggs and No Oranges, Saplings, A House in the Country and Miss Ranskill Comes Home.

On Thursday September 20th the potter and tile-maker Annabel Munn, who makes the beautiful Persephone mugs, sugar bowls and vases that are sold exclusively in our shop in Lamb's Conduit Street, gave a talk about her work at a Lunch in the shop. Annabel demonstrated how she makes these by showing us how she rolls out
the clay and decorates it.

In July, we held a Tea in Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire to celebrate Marghanita Laski and in particular her novel The Village. By kind permission of the owners of the house where she lived during the war, and which is the setting for the novel, we were able to see inside the house, walk round the lovely garden, have tea in the adjacent barn, and listen to a talk by Nicola Beauman and Juliet Gardiner about the book and its author. The owner of the house also gave a short talk and many enjoyed a tour round the village by a local historian.

At the end of June the writer Ali Smith, who has recently been writing about Katherine Mansfield, gave a talk about The Montana Stories and the Journal at a Lunch in the shop.

In June we celebrated Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Shuttle with a Tea at Great Maytham Hall near Rolvenden in Kent, where she was inspired to write the book. Nicola Beauman, and Anna Sebba who wrote the preface to The Shuttle, gave talks and everyone had a chance to walk round the garden which featured in The Shuttle, The Secret Garden and The Making of a Marchioness.

Also in June we held a Tea at Helmsley Walled Gardens in Helmsley, North Yorkshire where after a lovely cream tea, we were able to stroll round the beautiful C18th walled garden and admire the 52 types of Yorkshire apples, 34 Victorian vines and over 250 varieties of clematis.

In May we celebrated the publication of Winifred Peck’s House-Bound with a Tea at Annabelle's in Edinburgh.

In April Virginia McKenna, Anne Harvey and Patricia Brake gave a performance of ‘Secret Gardens’: a Celebration of Women Gardeners, a programme devised partly to celebrate Gardener’s Nightcap by Muriel Stuart.

Also in April there was a Persephone Tea in New York City.

In March, Frances Bernstein spoke at a Persephone Lunch to commemorate her mother, Hilda Bernstein.

In January the film of They Were Sisters was shown at the British Film Institute.

Events in 2006

In December Pamela Norris talked about ‘Mr Knightley, Mr Rochester and Miss Pettigrew’s Joe: Women Writers and the Romantic Hero.’

In December and November, Persephone Teas took place at the All Saints Centre, Weston near Bath and at West Stoke Village Hall near Chichester respectively.

In November the film of They Knew Mr Knight was shown at the British Film Institute.

Also in November Hermione Lee, author of Virginia Woolf, gave the second Annual Persephone Lecture at the Art Workers Guild called ‘Edith Wharton: Work in Progress’.

In October Eleanor Bron talked about 'Reading'.

Also in October Penelope Lively and Nicola were at the Cheltenham Literary Festival where they each spoke about their favourite Persephone books and answered questions from the audience.

In September Anne Sebba talked about 'American Heiress weds English Aristocrat: Henry James, Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Shuttle and Jennie Churchill'.

Also in September Emily went to Ottakar's Bookshop in Godalming, Surrey to talk about our books.

In March there was a celebration of Joanna Cannan’s Princes in the Land in Oxford, where it is set. Please see the Fortnightly Letter for 15 April for more information.

In April the film adaptation of The Blank Wall, 'The Reckless Moment', was shown at The British Film Institute.

Events in 2005

In November Christina Hardyment talked about How To Run Your Home Without Help, for which she has written the Preface.

In October Salley Vickers gave a Persephone Lecture at the Art Workers Guild called 'Miss Ranskill, Miss Garnet and Miss Pettigrew'.

In September we held the third Persephone Readers Weekend at Newnham College, Cambridge. The speakers were Julia Briggs, Amanda Craig, Elizabeth Crawford, Sue Gee, Val Hennessy, Eva Ibbotson, Jessica Mann and Jan Marsh.

In June we held the first Possibly Persephone? event at the shop. Readers were invited to bring a book which they particularly recommend as a potential Persephone book.

Also in June, by kind permission of the owners, there was a Persephone Lunch at Roppelegh’s, the beautiful C16th house near Haslemere where Mollie Panter-Downes lived and worked. We were shown over the house, and walked to the writing hut in the woods where Mollie did all her work.

In May we showed the film of They Were Sisters, sixty years to the day since its premiere in 1945. There was also a Persephone Book Group to discuss Hetty Dorval by Ethel Wilson, Persephone Book No. 58.

In April Benjamin Whitrow and Anne Harvey read from Trudy Bliss's editions of the letters of Thomas Carlyle and Jane Carlyle to celebrate Thea Holme’s The Carlyles at Home, Persephone Book No. 32.

In February we held a Persephone Book Group at which we discussed Dorothy Whipple’s They Were Sisters; the author of the new Persephone Preface, Celia Brayfield, spoke.

Events in 2004

In December we held a lunch to celebrate the publication of Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary. There were four speakers: Ruby Ferguson's step-granddaughter Sarah; Philip Glassborow, who told us about the book; Alison Haymonds, who researched an article about Ruby Ferguson and provided the biographical detail; and the novelist and short-story writer Candia McWilliam who has written the new Persephone Preface.

In November Juliet Gardiner talked about The Village, for which she wrote the Preface.

In October there was a lunch in celebration of Hilda Bernstein's The World that was Ours. The speakers were Chris Beauman, Francie Jowell, Anne Sebba and Frances Bernstein.

In July the Persephone Book Group discussed Bricks and Mortar.

In June Gretchen Gerzina, who wrote the afterword for The Making of a Marchioness and has written a new biography of Frances Hodgson Burnett, gave a talk about her.

At the May Lunch Cary Bazalgette talked about her mother Margaret Bonham: her work and life, and in particular the short stories collected in The Casino.

In April we showed the 1924 silent film of Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s The Home-Maker at the British Film Institute in Stephen Street W1. This extraordinary piece of film history, never previously shown in the UK, was obtained by Kevin Brownlow, to whom very many thanks.

In March Ysenda Maxtone Graham, author of the biography of her grandmother Jan Struther, talked about her and Mrs Miniver - whose 'three new library books lay virginally on the fender-stool, their bright paper wrappers unsullied by subscriber's hand.'

In Februrary Valerie Grove, who writes for The Times, talked about 'Reading and Writing'.

The January lunch gave Dorothy Whipple fans a chance to see the film of They Were Sisters, the fourth title by her we plan to publish (in 2005).

Events in 2003

In December we held a Persephone Book Group and discussed Miss Ranskill comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd.

In November Kay Dunbar talked about The Pleasures and Pains of running Literary Festivals.

In July we had a private viewing of Max Ophuls's The Reckless Moment (the first film to have been made of The Blank Wall) at the British Film Institute.

In June Nicola Beauman gave a talk called 'How do we find our books?'

May saw a lunch to celebrate Persephone's new translation of the German novel Manja by Anna Gmeyner. Eva Ibbotson, the writer's daughter, talked about her mother's life.

In April we revisited 24 Cheyne Row (Carlyle's house in Chelsea) for an evening tour, madeira and seedcake and a talk by Jan Marsh in Thomas Carlyle's attic study.

In March we celebrated the publication of our third Dorothy Whipple novel, The Priory, with a discussion between the three Dorothy Whipple preface writers Nina Bawden, Terence Handley Macmath and David Conville.

In February we showed the film of They Knew Mr Knight by Dorothy Whipple.

The January lunch, called 'The Turn of the Tide', marked sixty years since El Alamein and the publication of the Beveridge Report: Chris Beauman talked about how A House in the Country, written in 1942-3, anticipates post-war moral and social changes in Britain.

Events in 2002

In November Anne Harvey talked about Elizabeth Anna Hart, the author of our Christmas book The Runaway, and the actress Patricia Brake read from it.

In September we had the first Persephone event not in our office: by kind permission of the Custodian it was at Carlyle's House in Chelsea. Kathryn Hughes, who is working on a major new biography of Mrs Beeton, talked about The Carlyles at Home and Jane and Thomas Carlyle's life in the house.

In May Charlie Lee-Potter of BBC Radio 4 talked about her favourite Persephone books, and was very interesting about the merits or otherwise of reprinting a writer's early works after their death and without their consent.

In April Maureen Lipman read Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day on BBC Radio 4 and at the Persephone Lunch on 23 April she talked about that and her other favourite Persephone books.

In March Angela Huth talked about Persephone books, WWII and her own Land Girls.

In February Pamela Norris talked about Romantic Love (the subject of her next book) and Fidelity.

In January Tracy Chevalier nobly filled in for Susan Hill, who was unwell. She began by mentioning that she had just read The Home-Maker and enjoyed it enormously, and expressed the hope that in years to come her Girl with a Pearl Earring might also be a Persephone book (we would like that too!) She observed that The Victorian Chaise-longue is a horror story, or psychological science fiction, that explores the two big issues, sex and death. Whereas Girl is a historical novel, and she had tried to steep herself and her readers in the period in which it is set, Marghanita Laski steps in to a particular period and makes you want to get out as quickly as possible.

Events in 2001

At our Christmas lunch we showed the 1943 film of They Knew Mr Knight.

In November Ann Thwaite, who has written a biography of Frances Hodgson Burnett, talked about the author with special reference to The Making of a Marchioness.

In October we had a Persephone lunch at which Jacqueline Wilson, who wrote the preface, talked about The Children who lived in a Barn. She said that it is a ‘crossover’ book (read by both children and adults) but is unusual in not being fantasy, and that it ‘was heavily influential on me in many ways that I had not realised.’ She suggested that the book still has such power because the children are left on their own – them against the world – and that the barn represents every child’s fantasy of the den.

In October there was a Lunch celebrating Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day with a dramatised reading by the actress Patricia Brake and a talk by Henrietta Twycross-Martin who rediscovered the book for us.

At the Persephone Lunch on 3 July the distinguished biographer Lyndall Gordon talked about Katherine Mansfield.

The first two Persephone Teas were extremely memorable. Paul Binding and Penelope Hands spoke for a few minutes with wit and insight about, respectively, Fidelity and Someone at a Distance, before initiating an excellent discussion about each book.

Events in 2000

In November Nicola Beauman spoke about E.M. Delafield. This event was repeated on 6 December.

In September the discussion was about Noel Streatfeild's Saplings and her nephew Rowley Atterbury spoke.

In October Anne Harvey and Simon Brett discussed Harry and Virginia, about Harry and Virginia Graham, to celebrate the publication of the latter's poems Consider the Years 1938-46.

In June Janet Floyd, cultural historian and co-editor of Domestic Space, talked about Good Things in England.

In May Elizabeth Berridge talked about Tell It to a Stranger, her stories of the 1940s.

At the February lunch Juliet Lacey read from Judith Viorst's poems It's Hard to be Hip over Thirty, and Other Tragedies of Married Life and Maggie Boepple, who has lived in New York since the mid '60s and was the first New York City woman lobbyist, talked about the realities and unrealities of New York life at the time the poems were being written.

In January Jenny Hartley spoke about Few Eggs and No Oranges and Second World War literature by women.

Events in 1999

In November Penelope Lively talked about her own work and The Victorian Chaise-longue.

At our first lunch in the summer of 1999 Nina Bawden spoke about Someone at a Distance.