15 March 2010

The Fabian Tracts are now online as are the original notebooks in which Maud Pember Reeves and her friends recorded the women of Lambeth’s weekly expenditure. Here is a page from the notebooks that formed the basis for Round about a Pound a Week:

Last Friday it was Bloomsbury Day and Fiona attended. Here is a film about Bloomsbury. And Bloomsbury Bluestocking loves us.

Also, last week we went to the Institut Francais to see the 1930 film of Irene Nemirovsky’s David Golder.

Here is the obituary of Dodie Masterman (1918-2009) who painted the picture which we used for the front of the Classic edition of Little Boy Lost.

A reader in New York would like to join or organise a Persephone reading group in Manhattan, If anyone would like to join please write to elizabethwix@hotmail.com.

Lucy Gallagher ran a reading afternoon in Newcastle. This is what she wrote: ‘I wanted to let you know how the women's writing and film afternoon in Newcastle went – and I'm pleased to report that it was an enormous success! The aim of the afternoon was to bring together people with a shared love of women's writing in particular, and to exchange ideas and literary recommendations. Fifteen of us spent four hours talking about the books and films that we have enjoyed over cream tea and cucumber sandwiches, and whilst listening to the Persephone Cafe Music CD. Each guest received a pack for the afternoon containing a Persephone Catalogue, Biannual, leaflet and book mark, as well as a questionnaire, quiz and women's author name tag.

We talked about the perception of 'women's things', and favourite novels included Elizabeth Bowen's Death of the Heart, Virginia Woolf's The Waves, Molly Keane's Devoted Ladies and Winifred Holtby's South Riding. Significantly we discussed how many great books tend to be overlooked or have disappeared from view completely. To the question 'why would you recommend your selection to others', one guest wrote – 'because they are all lovely, not enough people read them, and if they did I'd have someone to talk to about them.' The afternoon ended with a prize draw, and gifts included copies of Stella Gibbon's Cold Comfort Farm, Elizabeth Taylor's Blaming and, as the event was held in Jesmond (where Winifred Watson lived), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.'

Finally, a picture of Matthew Hilton’s Persephone Bookcase, which is for sale (in an edition of five only) at the New Arts centre in Wiltshire.

Nicola Beauman
Lamb’s Conduit Street
15 March 2010