Press Coverage Summer 2006

In The Bookseller Caroline Sanderson chose Muriel Stuart’s Gardener’s Nightcap as her top gardening title for June: ‘This bedside gardening book, full of horticultural advice and other delightful prunings, is dedicated to “my husband, who led me down the garden path.” First published in 1938, it is now available in distinctive Persephone grey.’

Anna Carey highlighted How to Run Your Home without Help in The Irish Times Magazine: ‘Calling all undomestic goddesses. Does your daily cleaning routine consist of wiping a few crumbs off the kitchen counter? Does your kitchen bin overflow, does your kitchen floor lurk under a layer of grime and and do your bookshelves go undusted for weeks? Then you might need Kay Smallshaw’s How to Run Your Home without Help, a 1949 guide that has been reissued in a typically stylish edition by Persephone. Aimed at middle-class housewives who were faced for the first time with the challenge of living without servants, Smallshaw’s book is still surprisingly useful. It is also very amusing, a snapshot of a world in which the front steps should be scrubbed every week but your hair will be fine if you brush it every day and get “a shampoo every ten days or so.” The perfect present for the slovenly.’

In The Tablet Isabel de Bertodano praised There Were No Windows’ ‘strangely contemporary air… In spite of her grim subject, Hoult’s story, though sad and raw, is never gloomy and often funny… In spite of her eccentricities the reader falls slightly in love with Claire, a romantic character who is here exposed in all the vulnerability of old age. It could easily become too depressing, but There Were No Windows has a lightness of touch, is beautifully written and Norah Hoult has produced an honest, compelling account of Alzheimer’s without ever betraying her friend.’

In House and Garden Matthew Dennison chose How to Run Your Home without Help as one of the ‘seven books published in 2005 which, though not aimed at the generalist reader, are quirky, unusual and noteworthy’: Kay Smallshaw ‘conjures a vanished world, where housework for the wife grappling with a new lack of domestic staff is continuous and standards rigorously high… Like many titles reissued by Persephone, this is a period piece, but one that combines insight with charm.’

Domino magazine in America called our books ‘the prettiest paperbacks ever… These charming reprints of forgotten diaries, cookbooks and novels are anything but dusty. Hidden beneath their pearl-grey jackets are gorgeous endpapers inspired by vintage textiles… Great reads, great gifts and gorgeous on the shelf!’

The World of Interiors picked Good Food on the Aga ‘to remind you of the wonders of owning an Aga. Organised by month, and headed with illustrations by Edward Bawden, this is the perfect cookbook for those with an old or new model of the classic stove’ (shown in bright egg-yolk yellow).

Country Living quoted Good Things in England in which Florence White suggests a ‘simple’ menu for May: “dressed crab, poached eggs on stewed cucumber, spitchocked spring chicken and creamed nettles, cowslip pudding-pie, gooseberry fool and Mrs Raffald's nice whet.” She adds, “It is important to remember that the portions served should be small; it is much more attractive to offer a second helping than a single one that is too large.” So true, so true.’

In Country Life Leslie Geddes-Brown chose books by ‘Five Grand Dames of British Cookery’: Lady Clark of Tillypronie, Georgiana, Countess of Dudley, Dorothy Allhusen, Lady Maclean and Lady Jekyll DBE. ‘Her Kitchen Essays [which is in fact the only one of the five books in print] has recipes for ‘Edward V11's favourite boiled mutton and Mrs Gladstone’s egg flip.’