From Phinney Books in Seattle, WA:
For a long time, we’ve been admirers of Persephone Books, both for the distinctive gray elegance of the books they publish and for the books themselves, which are by just the sort of semi-neglected writers we love to find. Tom visited their shop in London before they moved to Bath, and we’ve ogled and envied the dedicated Persephone bookcase in the equally elegant Beacon Hill Books in Boston. We’ve brought in their books on occasion from the UK, but it hasn’t been easy, or very affordable, to do so. Recently, though, we set up a direct ordering relationship as one of their few North American retail outlets, and this week our first, long-awaited shipment arrived. (I texted Liz as soon as it did, and I timed it: it took her seven minutes to get to the store from her house to help unpack the box.)
Based on the explosion of ecstatic comments to our Instagram post, many of you are already familiar with Persephone. For those of you who aren’t: like some of our favorite publishers (NYRB Classics, McNally Editions, Pushkin Press) they specialize in resurrecting books that have fallen, undeservedly, out of print—in their case, the books are mostly fiction, mostly British, mostly from the mid-20th century, and mostly, though not exclusively, by women. And like those other publishers—but even more so—they connect their books with a strong and consistent design. Persephone Books look, and feel, like no others, with their uniform gray covers and modest title typeface, hiding a splash of color in their endpapers, which are based on an actual textile design from the time each book was written or set. They are, technically, paperbacks, but they are lovelier, and more lovingly designed and printed, than almost any hardcover. And the books themselves are chosen with a consistent taste that assures you that if you like some of the books they publish, you will surely like others. And we do: you’ll recognize many of their authors as ones we too have championed, like Winifred Holtby, Sylvia Townsend Warner, R.C. Sherriff, Diana Athill, Ethel Wilson, and Liz’s latest rediscovery, Mollie Panter-Downes.
So far, over their 26 years, they have published 152 books, of which our first delivery included a selection of about 25, including their latest, Crooked Cross by Sally Carson, which Liz (whose interest in that book spurred this whole escapade) has already started devouring (and which we’ve already sold out of…). To celebrate their arrival, we’ve given them their own table, and our long-term plan is to give them their own shelf. (They really shine—demurely, of course—when placed together.) And our long-term hope is that there’ll be enough interest in them here, especially since there are only a few shops anywhere outside of the UK where you can find so many, that we’ll be able to make regular reorders, so if we don’t have the specific one you’re looking for in this batch, we can easily get it in our next one. If you want to find out more about Persephone, you can visit their chatty and informative website and subscribe to their chatty and informative monthly newsletter or biannual Persephone Pamphlet. And you can read about each of their books either via the links on this list, or by paging through their virtual catalog. And maybe some day you will make a pilgrimage to their shop in Bath.
[…]We’re excited about this new little adventure, and we hope you will be too.
