Archives: Persephone Post

Some Persephone readers will know (cf. the March Letter) that the Persephone team is thinking of getting its own dog. This is partly because a relation has a dog with whom we have fallen in love; and partly because we think it might distract us from the pervading Brexit gloom. So now we are looking for a puppy. And have been reading Dogs of the National Trust by Amy Feldman (which we sell in the shop).  Here is Jane Carlyle’s dog Nero: a similar dog would be SO appropriate for a literary establishment (and also he appears on the endpaper for The Carlyles at Home). Nero is thought to be a Havanese, although when Jane acquired him in December 1849 she assumed he was a mongrel. He was buried in the garden of Carlyle’s House in February 1860.

A Peasant Woman from Tula Province 1910. (In 1924 Virginia Woolf wrote: ‘On or about December 1910 human character changed’: ‘The date refers to the seminal exhibition Manet and the Post-Impressionists organised by Roger Fry. This change in human character caused a domino-effect: “All human relations have shifted – those between masters and servants, husbands and wives, parents and children. And when human relations change there is at the same time a change in religion, conduct, politics, and literature.” Modernity, as defined by Virginia Woolf, is a society and culture in flux. With references to breaking, “smashing and crashing”, and chaotic noise, Woolf presents modernity as fragmentary and unstable’ (here).

In 1926 Natalia Goncharova designed the sets and costumes for the Ballet Russes production of  Stravinsky’s The Firebird. This week the Royal Ballet is performing it using her designs: inevitably the performance is sold out but here are some photographs.

The Cyclist 1913. What a shock it must have been seeing this painting for the first time – the very same year that several of the Omega Workshop fabrics (used on six of our endpapers) amazed people in England seeing them for the first time.

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Goncharov was born in Tula province to a family of noble lineage. Her father’s family connected directly back to Pushkin whose novels she would one day illustrate. At art school in Moscow she met her partner Mikhail Larionov and they worked together through upheavals in Russia, exile in Paris, ill health and intermittent poverty until the end of their days.The Smoker 1911 obviously takes off from looking hard at Cezanne but sends the subject straight back to Russia’ (Laura Cumming).

Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) was one of the greatest women painters of all time. But probably very few of us have heard of her. Now there is an exhibition of her work at Tate Modern (until early September) and over the summer Goncharova is the name that will be on all our lips. This is a 1907 self-portrait. ‘She is 26 years old and the rising star of Russia’s avant garde. Here she stands before a wall of her own works, justifiably holding up a triumphant bouquet of yellow lilies … it gives you, straight away, the painter and her persona – zestful, energetic, with a direct and exuberant touch’ (Laura Cumming in the Observer).

And here is the rose in our garden! Every few days at this time of year we pick fresh flowers to put in a jug in the window. This rose came from David Austin a few years ago but sadly we have forgotten what it is: not one of the four we have had on the Post this week but maybe it’s Constance Spry or Madame Gregoire Staechelin or New Dawn or Albertine, please will someone tell us (quite likely to be Albertine because of the literary connections).

Today’s rose is Rose-Marie, available here, very like yesterday’s rose but one can’t have too many of these glorious white roses. And tomorrow it will be the David Austin rose which rampages over the Persephone Books garden!

It seems very trivial merely to have roses on the Post when we should be commemorating the D-Day landings by quoting from Vere Hodgson or Mollie Panter-Downes. But roses are a crucial part of life and would have been in 1944. This rose is called Desdemona.

This rose is called Olivia and is available here. Really, at this moment of political doom and gloom the only thing to do is plant roses. And eat chocolate. And perhaps get a puppy (we are planning to do so). Apart from reading novels of course. We are having an Alice Adams binge, she was SO brilliant but  perhaps a bit left-field for most of our British readers; quite apart from the fact that there is a young modern novelist with the same name.