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| Founded | 1999; 26 years ago (1999) |
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| Founder | Nicola Beauman |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Headquarters location | Bath, Somerset |
| Key people | Francesca Beauman (Managing Director) |
| Publication types | Largely-neglected fiction and non-fiction, mostly by women writers |
| Official website | www |
Persephone Books is an independentpublisher based inBath, England. Founded in 1999 byNicola Beauman, Persephone Books reprints works largely by women writers of the late 19th and 20th century, though a few books by men are included. The catalogue includes fiction (novels and short stories) and non-fiction (diaries, memoirs and cookery books). Most books have a grey dustjacket andendpaper using a contemporaneous design, with a matching bookmark.
The company sells books mostly through its website, but also maintains a shop in Bath.
Persephone Books was founded as amail-order publisher in the spring of 1999 by writer Nicola Beauman, after she received a small inheritance from her father, thejuristF. A. Mann.[1] Beauman named the company Persephone after theGreek goddess connected with spring who is "both 'victim and mistress'".[2] Beauman wanted to upend the devaluing of women writers in literary culture and to restore previously lost works to thecanon.[3]: 242 She was inspired byVirago Press, which had published her first bookA Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914–39, and its commitment toreprinting lost classics of women's literature.[1]
The company's first offices were inClerkenwell, London. Sales at first were modest, but its 2000 reprint ofMiss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, the publisher's 21st book, became a bestseller with over 100,000 sales by 2012.[1] The success ofMiss Pettigrew allowed the company to set up a new shop inLamb's Conduit Street inBloomsbury, where it remained for two decades. In May 2021 the Bloomsbury shop was closed and the company moved to Edgar Buildings in Bath.[4]
Most of Persephone's publications are issued in a uniform grey colour, withendpapers that reproduce prints or patterns from the year of the book's first printing.[5] For example, theThey Knew Mr. Knight endpapers represent an industrial town in dark colours, reflecting the theme of the title.[6] Each book istypeset inITCBaskerville.[2] The design was inspired by the simplicity of 1930sPenguin Books and the design of French publications.[7]
Most titles in the catalogue were written by women in the early or mid-20th century and focus on representations of the home in a genre sometimes called domestic feminism.[8] In this way, Persephone combines bothmodernism andfeminist literature.[3]: 244 The catalogue is described as containing "the type of books where very quiet things happen in very dramatic ways to perfectly normal people without anyone thinking twice about it."[6] In some cases, the publisher has actually adopted the label of "middlebrow" for combining both a literary sensitivity and a desire for driving plot in its book selections.[3]: 244 Books on cooking, memoirs, and collected letters are also included.[3]: 242
Persephone Books also publishes thePersephone Biannually (once thePersephone Quarterly)[2] magazine for subscribers, which includes articles on its newest publications. A monthly emailThe Persephone Letter keeps readers up to date on literary events at the Edgar Buildings in Bath, as well as on current theatre productions, exhibitions, relevant newspaper articles and obituaries of authors and of revolutionary women such asMary Quant andBeverley Lawrence Beech.[7]
Authors published by Persephone Books include:
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