I wrote about my encounter with Persephone Books when this blog was still on the breast and pooping up its back, but I just saw this beautiful diary on India Knight's blog and wanted to share it with you. am a great admirer of Persephone Books, which publishes neglected works by 20th century women writers (for this alone I love them) and (as if this weren't already enough) uses vintage fabric as inspiration for their endpapers. The blue fabric featured here is on sale at the store (GAH!) and the yellow was a fabric designed by Duncan Grant for Virginia Woolf's curtains. In this age of digital media, I am grateful to those who produce books that are beautiful, feminine, timeless, and inspiring to the senses. And how wonderful is their guide to Perfect Presents? Something lovely for the cook, the newlywed, the poet, the mother, the traveler, or the person who needs cheering up.
When my parents named me Persephone, they caught all sorts of hell from people who thought the name was absurd and pretentious. I've had to justify it, explain it, and repeat it my entire life. Having read what Persephone Books has to say about its name, I feel I now have the right words:
Why Persephone
We chose the name Persephone because it has a timeless quality; sounds beautiful; is very obviously feminine; and symbolises new beginnings (and fertility) as well as female creativity.
We did not at first realise that Persephone also symbolises many other aspects of women's lives, for example, less cheerfully, she represents married hell (being raped and imprisoned by her uncle Hades).
But mainly she is an image of women's creativity, and that is why our logo, based on a painting on a Greek amphora, shows a woman who is not only reading (the scroll) but also symbolises domesticity (the goose). She is not the goddess herself, but we preferred her to all other extant images of Persephone as well as to her own symbols - a daffodil, a lily, a pomegranate and a bat.
The agenda is available on October 21st at Persephone Books in London. If you're not in London, try emailing them at [email protected] to see if they can send one by mail...
