From The Persephone Quarterly Autumn 2006 No. 31

I hope the word will soon get round about Princes in the Land. It’s very funny but also thought-provoking about the whole thorny business of parenthood!’ CS, Stroud

‘I would like to congratulate you on your decision to reprint Alas, Poor Lady. On the surface a period piece, about “superfluous women”, it is, however, a wonderful evocation of Victorian life; and the further you get into it, & think about it, the more you question the easy assumption that it has nothing to say to us just because single women no longer have the lack of opportunities and choices they did in Grace’s day. I was full of wonder at the insight which enabled Rachel Ferguson to enter imaginatively into the narrow world of the Victorian spinster… and she is so astonishingly non-judgemental.’ RH, Coventry

‘There Were No Windows (as always with Persephone books, but especially with the novels) is a gem. Unpretentious but brilliantly written.’ ST, Stoke sub Hamden

‘I have just finished Someone at a Distance, thank you so much for the recommendation. I couldn’t believe the end. I haven’t cried so much in a book for a very long time, huge great sobs, what a fabulous ending… I loved it, as I did The Making of a Marchioness and Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.’ Rita Konig, New York

‘I really can’t imagine how books like Little Boy Lost (which I recommend evangelistically to everyone: friends, family, the girls I teach, the world in general via an Amazon review!), Someone at a Distance and Saplings could ever have been out of print. I know it’s been said before, but I really feel that I could recommend any Persephone book; although your catalogue is varied, there is a Persephone style or quality which is truly reliable.’ HN, Abingdon

‘I have just finished reading Consequences, which I found to be stunningly heartbreaking and haunting but enjoyed very much indeed.’ GS, Philadelphia

‘I read The Hopkins Manuscript today and found it so compelling that I couldn’t put it down. It was a very stormy, cold Sunday night here and just as the moon hit the earth in the book, and I was living through that awful night with Hopkins, a heavy rainstorm came through, the room got so dark and the wind was so high, it was uncanny… I found the book remarkable, I was impatient with Edgar at the beginning, he was so pompous, but I gradually came to have enormous sympathy for him.’ LB, Victoria

‘I adored The Priory and was totally absorbed by this wonderful family saga. I was always longing to get back to my book, which provides a lovely “long read”. I felt quite bereft when I had finished it!’ JC, Holt

‘I am a theologian and a writer and have introduced many people to Etty Hillesum’s An Interrupted Life through the Persephone edition, which I had had for several years. It is very well thumbed at this stage, a quite remarkable work. I also knew of Rowan Williams’s interest in her work and have corresponded with him in relation to that. So many thanks for publishing it.’ AT, Dublin

What a compelling read Princes in the Land is – such spare, elegant prose, Patricia speaking for “Everywoman” and the Oxford period detail so delightful, which all make the book unputdownable.’ SR, Cambridge

‘I am so struck by the way Frances Towers, in Tea with Mr Rochester, combines her rarified style with such deep humanistic sympathy.’ JD, Portland