Here in the UK the summer is definitely over: we wear coats to walk the dog and indeed wonder whether to put his knitted jacket on or not (not). And we reread Flush over the summer, the best book ever written about a dog, so feel we are well primed for Gilbert's autumn and winter.

But the important task for September is building the webpage for the two October books, Mrs Miniver and the Classic High Wages, and beginning to think about the April books, Crooked Cross (1934) by Sally Carson, with a Preface by Laura Freeman and the Classic edition of The Expendable Man (which means finding a picture for the cover, a particularly difficult task in this instance as those who've read the book will understand). 

The weekend this Letter is being written is the Jane Austen weekend so Bath is filled with people in Regency dress. Tickets are available for some of the events, details here. We in fact have a completely new attitude to Jane Austen, inspired by the excellent Jane Austen, The Secret Radical by Helena Kelly.

The greatest joy of the rentrée has been Colin from Accounts, which Lucy Mangan of the Guardian alerted us to a couple of weeks ago. It is absolutely superb, and in fact there were complaints from the dog owners among us as it is (partly) about a dog but no one had told us. Seriously, the script is a joy and the whole thing, the first series and the second, is extraordinarily good. Less good, but still compulsive listening for some of us, has been the George plot on The Archers on Radio 4, where it's now become clear that his mother, by keeping his secret, was an accessory to the crime, so the dilemma of whether you support your child by keeping schtum, or call the cops, has been cleverly mulled over. 

Some dates for the diary: on October 17th at 6pm there is a launch in the shop for our edition of Mrs Miniver; on October 23rd we are showing the film of Mrs Miniver; and on Thursday November 28th we are hoping some Persephone readers might join us for a visit to the Tirzah Garwood exhibition at Dulwich (which we are sponsoring). More details on our website here.

As we write we are listening to the Persephone cd of Café Music which is now free to listen to on the website (just go to any page and it’s on the left). And, by the way, may we make it plain (there have been complaints) that the use of ‘we’ ('we write') is not for pompous reasons or to make us sound royal, it’s because Persephone Books is a collective, we all do everything. One person writes the Letter, another does Instagram, a third serves customers in the shop and a fourth sends out orders, and then we swop round; so ‘we’ means us at Persephone Books. Ditto we had a complaint about starting sentences with ‘So’. Yet the very first reader of the new Persephone Pamphlet (out in a month) declared: ‘I like the way it starts with ‘So’: it’s friendly, and makes it look as though you’re in the middle of a conversation with the reader.’ 

Anyway, back to Café Music: for years we didn’t have a copy, but then Lydia very kindly brought one to the Persephone Festival and Matt who does our tech-y stuff was able to upload it. Musical purists should avoid; but the rest of us can happily accept that the recording is twenty years old, that Dominic and Daniel were at the very start of their careers, and we can just enjoy its lusciousness and fun. 

This portrait of Mollie Panter-Downes was briefly up for auction last year.

We were going to bid but then, pleasingly, it was given by Mollie’s family to the National Portrait Gallery; it’s by the portrait painter Eileen Robey, undated but probably early 1930s. Next year Mollie’s novel One Fine Day will be reissued by Virago. We always have copies (of the current edition) in the shop and sell two or three a week. People come in who adored Good Evening, Mrs Craven, Minnie's Room and London War Notes and ask if we have anything more and we do. The reason we do not stock My Husband Simon, reprinted by the British Library, is because Mollie was very firm that she did not want her early novels reprinted and we respect that. If this was not the case, we would publish The Shoreless Sea which she wrote when she was 16 and was a huge bestseller. By the way, the table we use for tea and scones in the first floor piano nobile was Mollie's kitchen table which her daughter kindly gave to us.  

    There is a Van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery which Jonathan Jones in the Guardian called ‘heart-stopping’ and we shall definitely be going.

     On Friday November 8th there will be a study day in Winchester, and online, on The Art of Textiles, details here. Also Michael Herbert, who wrote the Preface to Out of the Window, is doing an online ten week course about Radical Women, details here. And the Barbara Pym Society has just had its annual conference in Oxford, if there is a Pym devotee who is not a member of the Society we highly recommend joining. And, yes, there should be a Dorothy Whipple Society, it would be marvellous if someone started one. Slightly Foxed have reprinted The Other Day as a limited edition hardback and Hazel Wood has written eloquently about it.

   We are looking forward to seeing the film of The Critic (although it will rake up some unhappy memories of nasty reviews we have received in our time, hey ho). And of course we cannot wait to see Lee, the film about Lee Miller, she was probably an extremely sharp critic. Here is the trailer.

     Ballet Shoes by our author Noel Streatfeild will be on at the National Theatre during December, January and February, details here. We often describe Saplings as being Ballet Shoes for grown ups, and it is indeed a little harrowing (being set in the War) but brilliant and highly recommended. It was mentioned on Front Row on Radio 4 last week: Catherine McCormack's  lovely little 'puff' for the book, and the reference to 'the great Persephone Books' (we are gently blushing) is after 39 minutes here.

  There was an article about our favourite Posy Simmonds in Prospect magazine.

And, staying with incredibly talented cartoonists/artists/writers (one really doesn’t know what to call either of them as both excel in so many mediums) there is a Raymond Briggs retrospective at Ditchling until December. We sometimes show the film of Ethel and Ernest and everyone is awestruck: it's a great and timeless work of art (we sell the book in the shop).

Nicola Beauman

8 Edgar Buildings, Bath