The sun is shining and the birds are singing and my shop is full of people. The first two are quite usual occurrences, the third is more exceptional. I very nearly didn't open until later in the day because when I took my orders up to the Post Office the High Street was deserted. I'm glad I thought better of it. That's one of thwe difficulties of being in this trade - or maybe any. If I stayed open 24/7 I MIGHT get a sale at any time; possibly not midnight or 4am. But one is never sure.
Through the sellers noticeboard I have discovered Persephone Books a publishing company started by a Nicola Beuaman who enjoyed reading many of the forgotten women authors like Dorothy Whipple (who?) Monica Dickens, Marghanita Laski, Mollie Panter-Downes, Richmal Crompton and EM Delafield and decided she wanted to bring them out of obscurity. She has also published one of the lesser known books by Virginia Woolf, 'Flush' about Elizabeth Barrett Browning's spaniel which was IMO worth doing. The books are interestingly presented, the covers uniformly grey, but she chooses old material and wall paper designs to have printed as endpapers. To my disappointment they are all paperback editions. It seems a great shame when she has gone to such trouble to create a beautiful copy not to go one step further and bring them out in hardback (so they become very collectable!) This way she seems to fall between two stools, making the books available but still expensive for a paperback.
Nice to be able to have one's own publishing house. She has a choice outlet in Lamb's Conduit Street W1 which guarantees a certain sort of clienetele.
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