It may be February fill-dike here in Bath, but we are on the alert for every sign of spring – snowdrops everywhere, daffodils just about to flower and best of all the divine-smelling daphne; for Bath residents we recommend a detour to see the daphne bush at the south end of Catharine Place (behind Margaret’s Buildings), the scent is astonishing. 'The Snowdrop' here is an 1804 engraving (it was on the Persephone Post ten days ago).

And in any case various Persephone excitements have overlaid the fill-dike feeling. First of all the Observer did us proud with a piece about our April book Crooked Cross by Sally Carson and this resulted in 1000 advance orders and for the first time in our history we have ordered a reprint before publication. Yay. Secondly, people seemed to like the Valentine’s Day offer. And thirdly we have focused on various things to take our mind off politics, for you won’t be surprised to hear that we are simply not looking at the news at the moment. Although John Major is our unlikely hero this week, as Michael Heseltine, equally oddly (but then there used to be many admirable Tories, Dominic Grieve was another) has been in the past. Nor are we listening to The Archers because the farm had a sewage spill, then Call the Midwife had a rather graphic rubbish strike last week, so all in all... However, This Cultural Life has remained as fastidious and fascinating as ever. Also we hugely enjoyed Miss Austen. It doesn’t have much plot (her sister burnt her letters) but somehow the acting (the acting!) and the colour and the clothes and the dialogue , even the music, all make it SO watchable.  And do read Gill Hornby's marvellous book if you haven't already.

Of course something like Miss Austen does make us regret, for the 150th or millionth time, that Someone at a Distance or High Wages, both by Dorothy Whipple, have not yet been adapted for television, we know it will happen eventually but how long oh lord how long? Btw, we discovered The Story Graph because of an article about it in the Guardian;  the comments about Someone at a Distance, the only Persephone book we have looked up so far, are heartwarming.

So Francesca went to Germany to visit the printer and see Crooked Cross rolling off the press (here is the delightful little video that GGP, our printer, made about the process for us last year, scroll down to see it and listen to the lovely music), meanwhile those of us at home were at work on our October book which is, excitingly, another novel by Winifred Watson. For nearly 25 years we have turned away questioners asking if the author of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day wrote any other novels with a shamefully brusque, ‘they aren’t as good’. But now we have realised that one of them, Hop, Step and Jump, is basically a Mills and Boon plus some quite hard-hitting themes and that our list will be greatly enhanced by a Mills and Boon. And btw here is the publisher's website: it seems rather rude to use their name as a generic  type and not make it plain that actually they are still flourishing, and how.                                                                                                                                

Other news: we read Sunday Best: 80 Great Books from a Lifetime of Reviews (2023) by John Carey and enjoyed it enormously. He is an excellent literary critic and makes one want to read all kinds of books one would never otherwise read; our preface writer Michael Herbert has turned his website about Madeline Linford’s journalism (which is where we originally came across her novel Out of the Window) into a nicely produced book; if any overseas readers are planning a trip to London and would like a personal tour guide, please contact our friend Julia MacKenzie, who is an excellent Blue Badge Tourist Guide (scroll down for the lovely comments people have left about her); and we were so pleased to read here about the Lower Chew Forest – 100,000 trees being planted by 1000 volunteers to create a very large new woodland between Bristol and Bath.

Finally, many, many thanks to everyone who wrote to congratulate us, and Nicola as its recipient, on the Persephone OBE. We are sure our authors, who are really the ones who should have received it, would have been very, very proud, well and our marvellous preface writers, and our readers, and (especially) all the Persephone girls (perhaps a hundred of them) who have worked here over 25 years. Last week we went to Windsor Castle and the charming Prince William pinned on the medal and here is a picture, it seems terribly toothy but of course better than not (being toothy). The star of the show was the blue velvet trouser suit (Hobbs via John Lewis ) paired with black patent leather loafers (ditto) so at least there was no need to worry about one’s appearance as the Prince asked in a friendly way why the interwar period produced so many marvellous women writers. And isn’t the ribbon a glorious shade of pink? The colour was apparently chosen by Queen Mary in 1937.

Nicola Beauman,

Persephone Books,

8 Edgar Buildings

Bath.