This month, the Persephone Books team finished a rather massive task – editing the translations of ten of the  short stories of Irène Nemirovsky (1903-42) which we publish next April. Bridget Patterson, the translator, has gone on holiday in France, and will be meeting Nemirovsky's daughter Denise Epstein, the elder child in this photograph, who is 80 this year.

In honour of the last day of the Persephone Reading Week - A Young Girl Reading 1776 by Jean Honore  Fragonard 1732-1806 © The National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 

Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant's address book ©  Tate Britain Archive.

A 1947 Utility kitchen of the sort that the characters in Minnie's Room by Mollie Panter-Downes very much hoped not to have to have ie. these were designed as minimalist and efficient kitchens for real people to cook in rather than as kitchens run by servants. Nowadays of course the dresser is a collector's item. Cf. Stuckinabook's interesting review of Minnie's Room today, put up as part of the amazing Persephone Reading Week organised by The B Files and Paperback Reader.

Part of a fresco painted by Piero della Francesca between 1452 and 1466 in the Bucci di Lorenzo Chapel, Basilica of San Francesco, Arezzo.

A poster for James Whale's 1930 film, adapted from R.C.Sherriff's play of the same name. Cf. Persephone books no. 57 The Hopkins Manuscript and no. 67 The Fortnight in September.

Today is the day Julia Strachey (1901-79) was born; she was the author of Persephone book no. 38 Cheerful Weather for the Wedding. Painting by Dora Carrington 1925 © The Artist's Estate.

Joan Bennett and James Mason in the 1949 thriller The Reckless Moment, directed by Max Ophuls and adapted from Persephone book no.42 The Blank Wall. © Columbia Pictures.

The cover by Vanessa Bell for the original 1929 edition of Virginia Woolf's masterpiece: one of the '50 books we wished we had published'. © The Hogarth Press.

James Cowie (1886-1956) A Portrait Group 1933-40 © The Artist's Estate.

We walk past St Pancras on the way to the office every day and soon it will be as glamorous as it was when this photograph was taken at the turn of the last century. Sadly, the tree has gone.

London's River 1951, a  poster by John Minton (1917-57) for London Transport.

EM Delafield photographed for Life magazine in 1925, six years after she published Consequences.

New End Square, Hampstead 1930 by Charles Ginner (1878-1952). Little has changed: even the chimney is still there, although the hospital buildings it looms over have been converted into flats.  ©  Brighton & Hove Museums.

Another hero - Rex Whistler. This is a 1940 Self Portrait in Uniform and was painted on the first-floor balcony of 27 York Terrace, Regent's Park. © The Council of The National Army Museum/The Estate of Rex Whistler.

More Thonet (cf. 22nd May). We have a 1907 poster of the entire Thonet range in the shop and in another life would like to run a London shop selling bentwood furniture (there is a dedicated bentwood shop in Bleibtreustr., Berlin, and one in Rue St Paul in Paris which always has a good selection).

Christian Schad (1894-1982), Sonja, 1928. © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie.

Margaret Calkin James (1895-1985) in 1915: calligrapher, graphic designer, printmaker and designer of the fabric used for the endpapers of Persephone books no. 37 The Runaway and no. 47 The New House. There are examples of her beautiful '30s posters at the London Transport Museum.

A 1946 Southern Railway poster by Walter E Spradbery, as seen on the wall of our Bloomsbury shop.

Carlyle's House in Cheyne Row, Chelsea in 1881, the year that Thomas Carlyle died.  In 1895 the house was saved by, amongst others, Leslie Stephen (Virginia Woolf's father) and is now managed by the National Trust. Cf. Persephone book no.32 The Carlyle's at Home.

Stanley Spencer (1891-1959), Helter Skelter, Hampstead Heath 1937. © Sheffield Galleries and Museum Trust.