Letter
The Persephone Books website first went up in
1999. But it is time for a redesign, and with
our new look comes a fortnightly Persephone letter
which will contain the kind of news which is too
ephemeral to go into the Persephone Quarterly.
In this respect reading this blog and looking
at the photographs will be like a virtual visit
to our Lamb's Conduit Street offices. Those who
have been here know that the shop runs straight
into the area where Jess and I have our desks,
and occasionally people have been startled to
be part of a less-than friendly dialogue with
a printer, or to have to pick their way round
a delivery of 1500 books. Yet whatever is going
on most visitors seem to enjoy being briefly part
of life at Persephone Books.
Now we want this enjoyment also to be open, courtesy
of the web, to those who cannot get to Lamb's
Conduit Street in person. Every couple of weeks
I shall write about what has been going on in
the shop and what has been preoccupying us. Inevitably
some will be surprised at the relatively unliterary
nature of this letter; this is because the day-to-day
business of running a publishing company is mostly
focused on the photocopy machine, what to have
for lunch, and will we get the orders done before
3.30 when Jim the postman arrives? Intellectual
argument about Ethel Wilson's commas, should The
Hopkins Manuscript be labelled science fiction,
or where is the vocabulary to describe the genius
of Dorothy Whipple, this kind of discussion is
merely fitted in, as it is in most people's life,
to the interstices of what is most pressing -
and this is often quite trivial.
One of the benefits of a redesigned website is that
we have been forced to confront a lot of questions that
are usually only discussed with customers who wander
in off the street wanting to know what is it with all
these grey books? Usually Jess or I or Alarys (on Tuesdays)
or Lisa (on Saturdays) will launch into an explanation
- reprints of
women writers, neglected classics, the wonderful
Dorothy Whipple if you want a fantastic read for
yourself, four cookery books, Miss
Pettigrew our bestseller and an ideal present,
short stories ditto, It's
Hard to Be Hip over Thirty for thirty-somethings,
Few
Eggs brilliant for those who live in Notting
Hill... Yet people do sometimes leave the shop
looking bewildered, and some may have abandoned
the website in equal bewilderment. We hope the
relaunch brings with it a new clarity.
This is a quality that is particularly essential
for journalists - if they don't straightaway understand
what you are trying to get across, you have lost
them. But what could be clearer than the imagery
of a yellow duster? Something that took up our
time in October was our efforts to get journalists
to take notice of one of our Christmas books,
How
to Run Your Home without Help, a 1949 manual
by Kay Smallshaw. Fran, who did the publicity
for this title, had the inspired idea of sending
it out with a yellow duster (how was it that I
only recently realised that yellow dusters are
softer than any cashmere and that duster-yellow
is an incredibly chic colour?). The duster, tied
in grey ribbon, certainly seemed to catch people's
attention. First Andrew O'Hagan wrote an extremely
interesting piece in the Telegraph. Then
The Times asked if they could run an
extract, and commissioned a journalist to spend
a week living the life prescribed in the book;
with the result that Carol Midgely stripped her
bed every day; soaked her bra for half an hour
in lavender-scented water and dried it flat on
a towel; started the vegetables for lunch at 12
o'clock; and was grateful to have had half an
hour to sit down at the end of the day and then
to do the mending. Her article about her week
appeared in The Times in late November.
Finally, Val Hennessy wrote a piece about the book in
which she said: 'Dusters ahoy! For a laugh and a half,
do read this gripping reprint of Kay Smallshaw's classic
advice manual for housewives... To read Smallshaw's fascinating
slice of social history is to realise that we women today
don't know that we're born....her book makes you both
laugh and marvel and unwittingly offers a fascinatingly
detailed picture of the household duties and everyday
skills once expected of women.' Copies are of the book
are leaving the office at a great rate and, in Persephone
terms, we have a bestseller on our hands.
Nicola Beauman
30 November 2005
Lamb's Conduit Street |
