'One may as well begin with Helen's letter to her sister' is the opening sentence of Howards End. Rooksnest, the real house, is just outside Stevenage (they used a different one, in Berkshire, for the film).We are a bit obsessed with the first sentences of novels and how crucial they are because we are planning a Persephone diary for 2011 with the first sentence of each of our (by then) ninety titles. It's the tone of EM Forster's sentence that is so perfect – 'One may as well begin...' There's another perfect sentence at the beginning of Where Angels Fear to Tread – 'They were all at Charing Cross to see Lilia off – Philip, Harriet, Irma, Mrs Herriton herself.' Can one resist a sentence like this (and the implications of the word 'herself')? 

Woman reading a letter Gerard ter Borch (1617-81) © Royal Collection. Perhaps Tracy Chevalier could be persuaded to write a novel about this scene.

The crucial aspect of a mail-order business. We may look slightly scatty (bentwood chairs, drooping daffodils, mugs of tea, towering piles of grey books) but this is all a front for our fiendish accuracy... The poster is undated, but presumably that's George VI,  and the lettering has a Festival of Britain look, so it must be c. 1950.  (In fact vintageposterblog.com told us it's 1944, by Tom Eckersley – many thanks for that.) And here is roughly the same slogan in an annoyingly patronising 1948 film.

The Letter 1937 by Harold Harvey (whose paintings are featured in the current issue of the Persephone Biannually) © Private Collection/Bridgeman Art Library. 

Letter from Proust to (presumably) Antoine Bibesco. It's just about legible, however a translation from a Persephone reader would be gratefully received. The second sentence seems to say, 'so what's your news?' but doesn't it sound better in French? This post is partly in honour of Dimanche,  the Nemirovsky short stories which have just arrived in the office (official publication April 22nd) but is also the beginning of this week's theme – letters. A dying art. Yes, some efficient people print out 'significant' emails. Most of us don't. And even if Proust's email to Antoine Bibesco survived on a 'motherboard' very few people would know how to access it. Hurrah for the simplicity of handwriting on a piece of paper.

On the Post the week of February 14th – love for a person,  love of books, love for a teacher. Norman Rockwell's The Teacher's Birthday (1956) is another of those paintings which is a novel in itself, one by Dorothy Canfield Fisher perhaps. As in fiction, it's all in the detail: the presents lined up on the desk, the dropped blackboard duster and chalk, the hat and coat. And the expression on Miss Jones's face... 

This collection is owned by the author of the excellent Spitalfields Life  .

This is a painting by Duncan Hannah of a 1954 book: also about couples giving their hearts, though in a very different way... 

And this couple too have given their hearts: a 1950s painting, Teddy boy with matches and girl, by Margareta Berger-Hamerschlag 1901-58.

A day late but nevertheless... This is Rex Whistler © The Estate of Rex Whistler.

A Ministry of Agriculture poster from the 1940s. Here is an article from the Telegraph about how allotments are now a growing trend.

One of the books we wished we had published, Howards End by EM Forster, which ends with the Schlegel sisters contemplating their future in the late spring warmth: 'The meadow was being re-cut, the great red poppies were reopening in the garden. July would follow with the little red poppies among the wheat, August with the cutting of the wheat.' This coming October it will be a hundred years since the first publication of Howards End (and various celebrations are planned, including a Persephone event). This is a new cover by Megan Wilson for the Vintage Classics edition in the USA, which uses a design for woven silk by Anna Maria Garthwaite. Peter Terzian wrote an article about the different Howards End covers; he writes about this one, and about one by David Gentleman.

Every gardener needs a good pair of boots: here are the ones that belonged to Britain's most famous female gardener, and sister-in-law of Agnes Jekyll, Gertrude Jekyll. Miss Jekyll's Gardening Boots, 1920 by William Nicholson. © The estate of Sir William Nicholson.

Daphne du Maurier with her husband and children in the garden at Menabilly. The grass looks tidy, nothing like the haunting description that opens her novel Rebecca: 'Nature had come into her own again... The woods, always a menace in the past, had triumphed in the end.'

In honour of the wonderful clumps of snowdrops to be seen at the moment: here is Muriel Stuart (1885-1957) who wrote two gardening books, one of which is Gardener's Nightcap. In it she writes: 'A gardener combines the qualities of a mother and a doctor. Maternal care and tenderness go out to the plant, and also the careful diagnosis and ministration of the medical man. Thus the garden embraces the two noblest professions in the world, for no garden can long survive unless it is loved, unless it is tended.'

Still Life with Tulips by Samuel Peploe (an ancestor of Fiona, who works in the LCS shop) © Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow/Bridgeman Art Library. And this week's theme was – pink, the most fascinating of all colours because it can sometimes be so perfect (as in these five instances) and at other times so, well, unappealing.

We sell this in both our shops together with the bowl and plate for £50; although the mugs are not available on their own (we don't have enough) the bowls may be bought on their own for £15, ditto the plate. In America the whole set is available at Ancient Industries. 

A painting of shelves by Emily Patrick.

Girls (Red Buttons) 1936 is by the American painter Reginald Marsh (1898-1954): the two women standing just inside Child's Cafeteria in New York were painted by him in 1936 and he must have painted them very quickly, virtually sketched them, as he was using egg tempura as a medium (it does not allow the artist much time before it dries). The painting, which stands out from everything around it in the gallery where it now hangs, was acquired by the Huntington Library and Art Collection only last year . What a wonderful book cover it would make.

So for the last four weeks we have had themes on the Post, but this week will return to random commentary (the title of Dorothy Whipple's selection from her writing diary: one copy on abe for £45 or do ask to borrow a photocopy from us). Nevertheless, at the end of the week a vague theme will, we think, be discernible. First up, this beautiful jug, no date or attribution but presumably an example of early-Victorian lustreware, very cheering for a cold February morning. Three bunches of blue hyacinths would finish it off perfectly.