From The Persephone Quarterly Spring 2004 No. 21

‘Miss Ranskill Comes Home is one of my favourite Persephone books. The plot is clever, and while parts of the book are terribly funny it is also heart-rending. The Afterword is particularly impressive and enlightening.’ KB, Glasgow

‘I would just like to say how much I enjoyed Reuben Sachs and Miss Pettigrew. The former is so moving, yet witty (I can see why Amy Levy is called the Jewish Jane Austen) and the ending left me stunned. Miss Pettigrew – and I'm glad I read them in that order – was so funny and charming and delightful. Both were “un-putdownable”’. AG, Saltdean

‘Few Eggs and No Oranges has become one of my all-time favourite books.’ GG, Swindon

‘I loved The Priory – Dorothy Whipple’s characters are accessible even though so much of their period. The reader understands their dilemmas and decisions and becomes absorbed in their world.’ AN, London W8

‘I had been thinking about buying The Priory for some time but finally decided to do so after reading The Provincial Lady in War Time where, on being asked to recommend a book to read: “Inspiration immediately descends upon me and I tell her without hesitation to read a delightful novel called The Priory by Dorothy Whipple...and that it is many years since I have enjoyed anything so much”' CW, Ossett
[In fact this comment, first read many years ago, was the source for our own discovery of Whipple; this led to Someone at a Distance being one of the first Persephone books, followed by two more of her novels with, we hope, more to come.]

‘I have just finished Elizabeth Cambridge’s Hostages to Fortune and it is my best Persephone book yet! Lots of pencil markings of particularly sensitive passages which have really moved me in their perception and truthfulness now adorn my copy, which I will not be lending out!’ CF, Lewes

‘I don't know when I have enjoyed a book so much as Miss Ranskill’ MH, Royston

‘Hostages to Fortune has been early morning balm - the story of William and Catherine’s unremitting grind and the sheer physical demands that children pose, and the emotional frictions – it was so truthfully told. (But I also felt very ashamed because our walls aren’t damp, and I don’t have such a restricted life as Catherine.) Now I'm on The Children who Lived in a Barn and feel such shock about it - those extraordinary parents, who are much more present in their absence than in most children’s books, and drawn so realistically! And then the crushing weight of bourgeois expectations on these children – Susan seems to think of nothing but properly-served hot meals and washing. I can’t decide if Eleanor Graham admires or criticises her.’ TH-M, St Albans

‘I took The Far Cry with me to read in India, started to read it on the train and discovered I was making the same journey, getting off halfway across India but on the same Bombay-Calcutta mail train. A more populated landscape than the one Teresa sees but other than that I read and saw the same India. A wonderful read, cleverly written, a strange sense of restraint very present despite the vividly descriptive language.’ SH, Hay-on-Wye