Have you ever wanted to see the spread of Persephone’s publications in date order? Well, I have. Not least for when I’m trying to match Persephone Books to empty slots on my Century of Books.
Well, I couldn’t find this information online. I don’t think it’s there. And so I put it together myself!
There are GRAPHS. They are TERRIBLE QUALITY. But INTERESTING NONETHELESS.
Here’s the spread of them – you can see quite the cluster around mid-century, unsurprisingly.
And here they are in the order that Persephone published them – which shows that they’re getting slightly more modern? Maybe? But also I’m surprised by how few are published post-1950.
Where’s my data, huh? First, here are all their books with the publication date (if it’s a collection of short stories that Persephone compiled themselves, I’ve used the date of the last story.)
| 1: William – an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton | 1920 |
| 2: Mariana by Monica Dickens | 1940 |
| 3: Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple | 1953 |
| 4: Fidelity by Susan Glaspell | 1915 |
| 5: An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 by Etty Hillesum | 1984 |
| 6: The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski | 1953 |
| 7: The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher | 1924 |
| 8: Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes by Mollie Panter-Downes | 1944 |
| 9: Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson | 1976 |
| 10: Good Things in England by Florence White | 1932 |
| 11: Julian Grenfell by Nicholas Mosley | 1976 |
| 12: It’s Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty by Judith Viorst | 1968 |
| 13: Consequences by E M Delafield | 1919 |
| 14: Farewell Leicester Square by Betty Miller | 1941 |
| 15: Tell It to a Stranger by Elizabeth Berridge | 1947 |
| 16: Saplings by Noel Streatfeild | 1945 |
| 17: Marjory Fleming by Oriel Malet | 1946 |
| 18: Every Eye by Isobel English | 1956 |
| 19: They Knew Mr Knight by Dorothy Whipple | 1934 |
| 20: A Woman’s Place: 1910-75 by Ruth Adam | 1975 |
| 21: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson | 1937 |
| 22: Consider the Years by Virginia Graham | 1946 |
| 23: Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy | 1888 |
| 24: Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton | 1948 |
| 25: The Montana Stories by Katherine Mansfield | 1923 |
| 26: Brook Evans by Susan Glaspell | 1928 |
| 27: The Children who Lived in a Barn by Eleanor Graham | 1938 |
| 28: Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski | 1949 |
| 29: The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1901 |
| 30: Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll | 1922 |
| 31: A House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair | 1944 |
| 32: The Carlyles at Home by Thea Holme | 1965 |
| 33: The Far Cry by Emma Smith | 1949 |
| 34: Minnie’s Room: The Peacetime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes by Mollie Panter-Downes | 1965 |
| 35: Greenery Street by Denis Mackail | 1925 |
| 36: Lettice Delmer by Susan Miles | 1958 |
| 37: The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart | 1872 |
| 38: Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey | 1932 |
| 39: Manja by Anna Gmeyner | 1939 |
| 40: The Priory by Dorothy Whipple | 1939 |
| 41: Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge | 1933 |
| 42: The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding | 1947 |
| 43: The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf | 1914 |
| 44: Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers | 1949 |
| 45: Good Food on the Aga by Ambrose Heath | 1933 |
| 46: Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd | 1946 |
| 47: The New House by Lettice Cooper | 1936 |
| 48: The Casino by Margaret Bonham | 1948 |
| 49: Bricks and Mortar by Helen Ashton | 1932 |
| 50: The World that was Ours by Hilda Bernstein | 1967 |
| 51: Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper | 1950 |
| 52: The Village by Marghanita Laski | 1952 |
| 53: Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Ferguson | 1937 |
| 54: They Can’t Ration These by Vicomte de Mauduit | 1940 |
| 55: Flush by Virginia Woolf | 1933 |
| 56: They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple | 1943 |
| 57: The Hopkins Manuscript by RC Sherriff | 1939 |
| 58: Hetty Dorval by Ethel Wilson | 1947 |
| 59: There Were No Windows by Norah Hoult | 1944 |
| 60: Doreen by Barbara Noble | 1946 |
| 61: A London Child of the 1870s by Molly Hughes | 1934 |
| 62: How To Run Your Home Without Help by Kay Smallshaw | 1949 |
| 63: Princes in the Land by Joanna Cannan | 1936 |
| 64: The Woman Novelist and Other Stories by Diana Gardner | 1946 |
| 65: Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson | 1937 |
| 66: Gardener’s Nightcap by Muriel Stuart | 1938 |
| 67: The Fortnight in September by RC Sherriff | 1931 |
| 68: The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes | 1963 |
| 69: Journal by Katherine Mansfield | 1927 |
| 70: Plats du Jour by Patience Gray | 1957 |
| 71: The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1907 |
| 72: House-Bound by Winifred Peck | 1942 |
| 73: The Young Pretenders by Edith Henrietta Fowler | 1895 |
| 74: The Closed Door and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple | 1961 |
| 75: On the Other Side: Letters to my Children from Germany 1940-46 by Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg | 1979 |
| 76: The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby | 1924 |
| 77: Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting by Penelope Mortimer | 1958 |
| 78: A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman | 1983 |
| 79: Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves | 1913 |
| 80: The Country Housewife’s Book by Lucy H Yates | 1934 |
| 81: Miss Buncle’s Book by DE Stevenson | 1934 |
| 82: Amours de Voyage by Arthur Hugh Clough | 1849 |
| 83: Making Conversation by Christine Longford | 1931 |
| 84: A New System of Domestic Cookery by Mrs Rundell | 1806 |
| 85: High Wages by Dorothy Whipple | 1930 |
| 86: To Bed with Grand Music by Marghanita Laski | 1946 |
| 87: Dimanche and Other Stories by Irène Némirovsky | 2000 |
| 88: Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon | 1981 |
| 89: The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow by Mrs Oliphant | 1890 |
| 90: The Winds of Heaven by Monica Dickens | 1955 |
| 91: Miss Buncle Married by DE Stevenson | 1936 |
| 92: Midsummer Night in the Workhouse by Diana Athill | 2011 |
| 93: The Sack of Bath by Adam Fergusson | 1973 |
| 94: No Surrender by Constance Maud | 1911 |
| 95: Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple | 1932 |
| 96: Dinners for Beginners by Rachel and Margaret Ryan | 1934 |
| 97: Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins | 1934 |
| 98: A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf | 1953 |
| 99: Patience by John Coates | 1953 |
| 100: The Persephone Book of Short Stories by | 1986 |
| 101: Heat Lightning by Helen Hull | 1932 |
| 102: The Exiles Return by Elisabeth de Waal | 2013 |
| 103: The Squire by Enid Bagnold | 1938 |
| 104: The Two Mrs Abbotts by DE Stevenson | 1943 |
| 105: Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield | 1930 |
| 106: Into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg | 1967 |
| 107: Wilfred and Eileen by Jonathan Smith | 1976 |
| 108: The Happy Tree by Rosalind Murray | 1926 |
| 109: The Country Life Cookery Book by Ambrose Heath | 1937 |
| 110: Because of the Lockwoods by Dorothy Whipple | 1949 |
| 111: London War Notes by Mollie Panter-Downes | 1972 |
| 112: Vain Shadow by Jane Hervey | 1963 |
| 113: Greengates by RC Sherriff | 1936 |
| 114: Gardeners’ Choice by Evelyn Dunbar and Charles Mahoney | 1937 |
| 115: Maman, What Are We Called Now? by Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar | 1945 |
| 116: A Lady and Her Husband by Amber Reeves | 1914 |
| 117: The Godwits Fly by Robin Hyde | 1938 |
| 118: Every Good Deed and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple | 1946 |
| 119: Long Live Great Bardfield by Tirzah Garwood | 2012 |
| 120: Madame Solario by Gladys Huntington | 1956 |
| 121: Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane | 1895 |
| 122: Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham | 1944 |
| 123: Emmeline by Judith Rossner | 1980 |
| 124: The Journey Home and Other Stories by Malachi Whitaker | 1934 |
| 125: Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton | 1953 |
| 126: Despised and Rejected by Rose Allatini | 1918 |
| 127: Young Anne by Dorothy Whipple | 1927 |
| 128: Tory Heaven by Marghanita Laski | 1948 |
And here they are in order of original publication – from 1806 to 2013 (though the 2013 was a novel that was unpublished many decades earlier).
| 84 | 84: A New System of Domestic Cookery by Mrs Rundell | 1806 |
| 82 | 82: Amours de Voyage by Arthur Hugh Clough | 1849 |
| 37 | 37: The Runaway by Elizabeth Anna Hart | 1872 |
| 23 | 23: Reuben Sachs by Amy Levy | 1888 |
| 89 | 89: The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow by Mrs Oliphant | 1890 |
| 73 | 73: The Young Pretenders by Edith Henrietta Fowler | 1895 |
| 121 | 121: Effi Briest by Theodor Fontane | 1895 |
| 29 | 29: The Making of a Marchioness by Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1901 |
| 71 | 71: The Shuttle by Frances Hodgson Burnett | 1907 |
| 94 | 94: No Surrender by Constance Maud | 1911 |
| 79 | 79: Round About a Pound a Week by Maud Pember Reeves | 1913 |
| 43 | 43: The Wise Virgins by Leonard Woolf | 1914 |
| 116 | 116: A Lady and Her Husband by Amber Reeves | 1914 |
| 4 | 4: Fidelity by Susan Glaspell | 1915 |
| 126 | 126: Despised and Rejected by Rose Allatini | 1918 |
| 13 | 13: Consequences by E M Delafield | 1919 |
| 1 | 1: William – an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton | 1920 |
| 30 | 30: Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll | 1922 |
| 25 | 25: The Montana Stories by Katherine Mansfield | 1923 |
| 7 | 7: The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher | 1924 |
| 76 | 76: The Crowded Street by Winifred Holtby | 1924 |
| 35 | 35: Greenery Street by Denis Mackail | 1925 |
| 108 | 108: The Happy Tree by Rosalind Murray | 1926 |
| 69 | 69: Journal by Katherine Mansfield | 1927 |
| 127 | 127: Young Anne by Dorothy Whipple | 1927 |
| 26 | 26: Brook Evans by Susan Glaspell | 1928 |
| 85 | 85: High Wages by Dorothy Whipple | 1930 |
| 105 | 105: Diary of a Provincial Lady by E M Delafield | 1930 |
| 67 | 67: The Fortnight in September by RC Sherriff | 1931 |
| 83 | 83: Making Conversation by Christine Longford | 1931 |
| 10 | 10: Good Things in England by Florence White | 1932 |
| 38 | 38: Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey | 1932 |
| 49 | 49: Bricks and Mortar by Helen Ashton | 1932 |
| 95 | 95: Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple | 1932 |
| 101 | 101: Heat Lightning by Helen Hull | 1932 |
| 41 | 41: Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge | 1933 |
| 45 | 45: Good Food on the Aga by Ambrose Heath | 1933 |
| 55 | 55: Flush by Virginia Woolf | 1933 |
| 19 | 19: They Knew Mr Knight by Dorothy Whipple | 1934 |
| 61 | 61: A London Child of the 1870s by Molly Hughes | 1934 |
| 80 | 80: The Country Housewife’s Book by Lucy H Yates | 1934 |
| 81 | 81: Miss Buncle’s Book by DE Stevenson | 1934 |
| 96 | 96: Dinners for Beginners by Rachel and Margaret Ryan | 1934 |
| 97 | 97: Harriet by Elizabeth Jenkins | 1934 |
| 124 | 124: The Journey Home and Other Stories by Malachi Whitaker | 1934 |
| 47 | 47: The New House by Lettice Cooper | 1936 |
| 63 | 63: Princes in the Land by Joanna Cannan | 1936 |
| 91 | 91: Miss Buncle Married by DE Stevenson | 1936 |
| 113 | 113: Greengates by RC Sherriff | 1936 |
| 21 | 21: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson | 1937 |
| 53 | 53: Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Ferguson | 1937 |
| 65 | 65: Alas, Poor Lady by Rachel Ferguson | 1937 |
| 109 | 109: The Country Life Cookery Book by Ambrose Heath | 1937 |
| 114 | 114: Gardeners’ Choice by Evelyn Dunbar and Charles Mahoney | 1937 |
| 27 | 27: The Children who Lived in a Barn by Eleanor Graham | 1938 |
| 66 | 66: Gardener’s Nightcap by Muriel Stuart | 1938 |
| 103 | 103: The Squire by Enid Bagnold | 1938 |
| 117 | 117: The Godwits Fly by Robin Hyde | 1938 |
| 39 | 39: Manja by Anna Gmeyner | 1939 |
| 40 | 40: The Priory by Dorothy Whipple | 1939 |
| 57 | 57: The Hopkins Manuscript by RC Sherriff | 1939 |
| 2 | 2: Mariana by Monica Dickens | 1940 |
| 54 | 54: They Can’t Ration These by Vicomte de Mauduit | 1940 |
| 14 | 14: Farewell Leicester Square by Betty Miller | 1941 |
| 72 | 72: House-Bound by Winifred Peck | 1942 |
| 56 | 56: They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple | 1943 |
| 104 | 104: The Two Mrs Abbotts by DE Stevenson | 1943 |
| 8 | 8: Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes by Mollie Panter-Downes | 1944 |
| 31 | 31: A House in the Country by Jocelyn Playfair | 1944 |
| 59 | 59: There Were No Windows by Norah Hoult | 1944 |
| 122 | 122: Earth and High Heaven by Gwethalyn Graham | 1944 |
| 16 | 16: Saplings by Noel Streatfeild | 1945 |
| 115 | 115: Maman, What Are We Called Now? by Jacqueline Mesnil-Amar | 1945 |
| 17 | 17: Marjory Fleming by Oriel Malet | 1946 |
| 22 | 22: Consider the Years by Virginia Graham | 1946 |
| 46 | 46: Miss Ranskill Comes Home by Barbara Euphan Todd | 1946 |
| 60 | 60: Doreen by Barbara Noble | 1946 |
| 64 | 64: The Woman Novelist and Other Stories by Diana Gardner | 1946 |
| 86 | 86: To Bed with Grand Music by Marghanita Laski | 1946 |
| 118 | 118: Every Good Deed and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple | 1946 |
| 15 | 15: Tell It to a Stranger by Elizabeth Berridge | 1947 |
| 42 | 42: The Blank Wall by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding | 1947 |
| 58 | 58: Hetty Dorval by Ethel Wilson | 1947 |
| 24 | 24: Family Roundabout by Richmal Crompton | 1948 |
| 48 | 48: The Casino by Margaret Bonham | 1948 |
| 128 | 128: Tory Heaven by Marghanita Laski | 1948 |
| 28 | 28: Little Boy Lost by Marghanita Laski | 1949 |
| 33 | 33: The Far Cry by Emma Smith | 1949 |
| 44 | 44: Tea with Mr Rochester by Frances Towers | 1949 |
| 62 | 62: How To Run Your Home Without Help by Kay Smallshaw | 1949 |
| 110 | 110: Because of the Lockwoods by Dorothy Whipple | 1949 |
| 51 | 51: Operation Heartbreak by Duff Cooper | 1950 |
| 52 | 52: The Village by Marghanita Laski | 1952 |
| 3 | 3: Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple | 1953 |
| 6 | 6: The Victorian Chaise-longue by Marghanita Laski | 1953 |
| 98 | 98: A Writer’s Diary by Virginia Woolf | 1953 |
| 99 | 99: Patience by John Coates | 1953 |
| 125 | 125: Guard Your Daughters by Diana Tutton | 1953 |
| 90 | 90: The Winds of Heaven by Monica Dickens | 1955 |
| 18 | 18: Every Eye by Isobel English | 1956 |
| 120 | 120: Madame Solario by Gladys Huntington | 1956 |
| 70 | 70: Plats du Jour by Patience Gray | 1957 |
| 36 | 36: Lettice Delmer by Susan Miles | 1958 |
| 77 | 77: Daddy’s Gone A-Hunting by Penelope Mortimer | 1958 |
| 74 | 74: The Closed Door and Other Stories by Dorothy Whipple | 1961 |
| 68 | 68: The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes | 1963 |
| 112 | 112: Vain Shadow by Jane Hervey | 1963 |
| 32 | 32: The Carlyles at Home by Thea Holme | 1965 |
| 34 | 34: Minnie’s Room: The Peacetime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes by Mollie Panter-Downes | 1965 |
| 50 | 50: The World that was Ours by Hilda Bernstein | 1967 |
| 106 | 106: Into the Whirlwind by Eugenia Ginzburg | 1967 |
| 12 | 12: It’s Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty by Judith Viorst | 1968 |
| 111 | 111: London War Notes by Mollie Panter-Downes | 1972 |
| 93 | 93: The Sack of Bath by Adam Fergusson | 1973 |
| 20 | 20: A Woman’s Place: 1910-75 by Ruth Adam | 1975 |
| 9 | 9: Few Eggs and No Oranges by Vere Hodgson | 1976 |
| 11 | 11: Julian Grenfell by Nicholas Mosley | 1976 |
| 107 | 107: Wilfred and Eileen by Jonathan Smith | 1976 |
| 75 | 75: On the Other Side: Letters to my Children from Germany 1940-46 by Mathilde Wolff-Mönckeberg | 1979 |
| 123 | 123: Emmeline by Judith Rossner | 1980 |
| 88 | 88: Still Missing by Beth Gutcheon | 1981 |
| 78 | 78: A Very Great Profession by Nicola Beauman | 1983 |
| 5 | 5: An Interrupted Life: The Diaries and Letters of Etty Hillesum 1941-43 by Etty Hillesum | 1984 |
| 100 | 100: The Persephone Book of Short Stories by | 1986 |
| 87 | 87: Dimanche and Other Stories by Irène Némirovsky | 2000 |
| 92 | 92: Midsummer Night in the Workhouse by Diana Athill | 2011 |
| 119 | 119: Long Live Great Bardfield by Tirzah Garwood | 2012 |
| 102 | 102: The Exiles Return by Elisabeth de Waal | 2013 |
I hope that was interesting! I found it fun – and it will be a useful resource for me in the future. And maybe you too!
You are a legend. That is all :-)
Haha! Thanks :D
Agreed with Madame B! And so interesting – what a spread of dates they cover! :)
Yes! Some definite outliers – but interesting how many are grouped in a similar place.
I loved this, Simon! You know I love graphs & Persephones, so this post was the missing link between the two :)
The wonderful meeting point :D
This is brilliant and very useful. Thank you so much!
You’re welcome!
This is amazing! Does it represent many hours of work? As I own all the Persephones (I know….) I will be trying to print your post off to keep for future reference and I am full of admiration!
Lots of googling but didn’t take TOO long!
Delightful! I’m now tempted to do this for Slightly Foxed (with their much smaller list of publications) as I look at my own gap years for ACOB. Or I could actually review the dozens of books I’ve read but not written about for ACOB. Procrastination is a powerful thing…
Oh PLEASE do! That would be great. Worthy procrastination.
such a fascinating post! thank you!!
Thanks Karen :D
What a great post, Simon! I’m tagging this and I’m sure I will refer to it often. Thanks for all of your work.
Hmm, some interesting statistical tests could be applied to see if your hypothesis is correct.
Well done on the data mining!
This is great – graphs and books. Perfect combo.