Collecting Persephone Books

[LadyTakingTea]

Does anyone collect these? I have 29 of them now. I haven't read them all yet.

What is your favourite and which one was disappointing?

I liked all the Dorothy Whipple books, The Hopkins Manuscript, Last Fortnight in September, Greengates, The Crooked Cross, Family Roundabout, The Victorian Chaise Longue and Harriet.

I was disappointed with National Provincial and I'm probably the only person alive who doesn't love, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day.

I'm about to start, The Prisoner-the follow up to The Crooked Cross

They are lovely books. I have just finished Mariana by Monica Dickens and also loved Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laska.
Do you buy them new or second hand?

The Prisoner is on BBC Sounds at the moment.

Not a great addition to your post, but thought I’d mention it anyway!

Well, they’re all by very different writers, so it’s a bit mad to think you’ll like them all equally, surely? I mean, they’re reissued books as different as Virginia Woolf’s daft but likeable Flush and Etty Hillesum’s diaries (she died in Auschwitz).

I think my single favourite novel of theirs that I’ve read is Nora Hoult’s There Were No Windows, also Enid Bagnold’s The Squire, and any of the Katherine Mansfields.

I try and get second hand versions - more fun than just ordering from the website

I have about 60 now and my dream is to own the whole collection. I have a mixture of new and second hand. I did have a monthly subscription as a birthday present a few years back too. I treated myself to three new ones this month and will do the same next month. I have 1 - 24 , random ones in the middle and most of the recently published ones over the last 3 years. Persephone books and my Folio collection of Anthony Trollopes bring me so much joy.

Thanks-that's good to know. I'm going to read it first though as I have it in my hand at the moment.

@DiggoryVenn I buy them new apart from one, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day that I found in an Oxfam bookshop in Yorkshire. I always look but so far, no luck!

I have two copies of The Making of a Marchioness because the first one, which was bought for me as a gift, was in an edition with a picture cover and I want the whole collection to have a uniform grey jacket. I intend to give the picture one to a friend as a birthday gift.

@IlovetoKnitandRead That's my dream too!

@EasilyPleased I have The Squire, as yet untouched.

Has anyone read The Victorian Chaise-longue?

@LadyTakingTea I have read The Victorian Chaise-Lounge and I must admit that I didn’t really get it. It was one of my earlier Persephone reads and I think I was expecting a more spooky story, not the psychological torture.
(I have just checked my reading journal and I read it in 2016, so I might re-read it this weekend.)

If you're at all interested in cooking and social history then Good Things In England by Florence White is very good.

If you do @IlovetoKnitandRead I'd love to know your thoughts on it.

I very much enjoyed it as I was reading it but I've sincebeen thinking about it and have come to the sad conclusion that I don't really know what was going on! Was it a dream or was it about reincarnation or time travel or something else entirely?

Thanks for the recommendation @DreamingOfGeneHunt . It sound as if it is something I would like.

I really liked "Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes". I don't think there are any that have been a real disappointment, but I've avoided some I know I wouldn't enjoy (literary, darker).

Oh, great — hope you enjoy it. I think EB should be known for more than National Velvet.

I liked those too @reallyalurker

I don't think The Victorian Chaise-Longue or Harriet would be to your liking though.

Inspired by this thread I have purchased a few more this morning to add to my collection:

The Prisoner - Sally Carson
The Blank Wall - Elizabeth Saxnay Holding

And then some eBay purchases:

A London Child of the 1870s - Mary Vivian Hughes
The Exiles Return - Edmund de Waal
Round about a pound a week - Maud Pemberton Reeves
How to Run your Home without help - Kay Small Shaw
Little boy lost - Marghanita Laski
Greenbanks - Dorothy Whipple
Operation Heartbreak - Duff Cooper

So 9 in total - it could easily have been more, but some managed to get away from me at the last minute.
I will have to clear some more space on shelves for them.

That's fantastic, @Jaffapaffa . I really hope that you enjoy them.

How many will you have now? Maybe it's time to buy a special bookcase!

OMG I only have 48! I thought it was more !
I have just finished Greengates and I loved it.
Here* *is my special bookcase. I need to move the Dickens really so I can fit more Persephone and Folio books. The Dickens were £25 for the lot in a National Trust bookshop

That looks good! Plenty of room there for more. Great Dickens bargain by the way.

I can spot the Victorian Chaise Longue: it's the only one too slim to have the picture of Persephone on the spine. I know they couldn't do it but I am unreasonable and it irritates me! 😀

Mooching around in my local charity shop this morning and found this, a low-risk way to start, for the princely sum of £1.50 :)

Well done! I'm not jealous...😻

I have only found one in a charity shop and it was £6

Love all the Dorothy Whipple. Recently read the Fortnight in September, very enjoyable and although set in the 30s, but there’s just enough that’s relatable. Not so keen on the thinly veiled anti semitism in Mrs Pertigrew. There’s one about an aristocratic family pre WW1, very interesting evocation of a class and era that’s so removed from current times. Julian Grenfell by Nicholas Mosley.

I'll look out for that one, @TheGander

Just finished The Prisoner by Sally Carson. A bit too much inner musing for me but some shocking and upsetting events.

I bought the whole list as at 2016 having received a legacy when my beloved Dad died. I wanted to spend it on something lovely. I think there were 111 books at the time, and they arrived at my house in 4 boxes, and were unpacked into a perfect bookcase.

I have read about 2/3 of my collection to date and favourites are Monica Dickens (who I loved anyway), the Whipples, the Laskis, Mollie Panter-Downes, Katharine Mansfield, Molly Hughes, although I knew her books back to front anyway, Miss Buncle, of course 😁, Diary of a Provincial Lady which I first read in my teens. But, honestly, they're all such fascinating reads. I'm going to update my collection when I finish the books I have.

I thought The Blank Wall was terrific, @Jaffapaffa.

The books I always recommend are Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge, and Doreen by Barbara Noble. Oh, and the fantastic The Expendable Man by Dorothy B. Hughes!

What a wonderful thing @Pippin2017

I've read Diary of a Provincial Lady but don't have it in the Persephone edition. I do though have Consequences and, although I really liked it, I would never have guessed that it was the same author.

I've looked up your recommendations @Terpsichore and they are now on the list. I think it would be easier to do what @Pippin2017 has done and just buy the lot!

However, that's not going to happen any time soon so I'm doing it piecemeal. The latest one that've just ordered is by Florence White, Good Things in England. I have just read about her in Romantic Moderns by Alexandra Harris (a Thanes and Hudson book) and she sounds fascinating-the first freelance food journalist in England.

Good Things in England is fascinating, @LadyTakingTea! I'm sure you'll enjoy it.

I am looking forward to it so much @TerpsichoreI see that Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has also recommended it in Readers' Comments. Have you trued any of the recipes?

She sounds like a fascinating woman and since reading about her in Romantic Moderns, I've fallen down a bit of a lovely rabbit hole trying to find out more. It seems odd that she isn't better known.