And here is Noel Streatfeild in 1945, taken by the celebrity photgrapher of the 1930s and '40s Howard Coster (1885-1959). The National Portrait Gallery has an archive of thousands of his portraits including those of Vera Brittain, Evelyn Waugh, Elizabeth Bowen, Vita Sackville-West and Reynolds Stone. © Artist's Estate

This, as suggested by a Persephone reader, would make an amazing cover for Ballet Shoes. Laura Knight, Ready for Rehearsal. © Harrogate Museums and Arts and Bridgeman Art Library

An early Puffin edition of the children's classic Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfeild, the author of Persephone book no. 16 Saplings. The lettering may look old-fashioned and the dancers slightly wishy-washy but surely it's a better cover than the modern version? Also, the background is a wonderful terracotta-ish pink; whereas it's impossible to think of a polite adjective to describe the modern pale purple.

We used to use woodcuts a lot when the Persephone Quarterly was in black and white rather than colour. But people have written to say that they have missed them, so the next Biannually (which will arrive around the end of April) will have a Gwen Raverat woodcut. And here is one by Reynolds Stone.

In 1955 Reynolds Stone engraved the coat of arms on the UK passport, which is still in use fifty-five years later.

And wasn't he wonderful looking?!

Dolcis disappeared in 2008 but the beautiful Reynolds Stone logo went long before that.

This week will be devoted to the work of Reynolds Stone (1909-79), the engraver and letter cutter. First up is the label used on London Library books. (An aside about the link for Reynolds Stone – it was a choice between the website done by his family; the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; and Wikipedia. Interestingly, it was the latter that proved the best. And despite our intense loyalty to the DNB – which can be accessed by using a public library card number –  the entry for Reynolds Stone is slightly annoying: Lord Britten anyone? Yes, apparently he was made a Life Peer in his last months. But has anyone, anywhere, outside the DNB that is, ever thought of him as anything but Benjamin Britten?!)

And the final poster of the week - Fairground 1945 by Barbara Jones (1912-98). This and other 'school prints' may be bought from Merivale Editions.

Denton Welch painted this for Shell in 1937: Hadlow Castle still exists, four miles from Tonbridge. We used the image on the front of a Biannually (Quarterly as it was then) to illustrate Dorothy Whipple's The Priory, so it may be familiar. 

The current Fortnightly Letter contains the poster for the film of Irene Nemirovsky's David Golder. It's interesting that Mr Knight looks so like David Golder. Not surprising – the wicked swindler has always been with us...

A late 1930s poster © Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. We applaud the sentiment, although nowadays could do without several of the writers eg. Scott. 

Where publishing begins. Poster (by Ellis Silas) available, like several of those hanging in Lamb's Conduit Street, from Leslie Sherlock.  But it would need a huge wall, and frame – it's 50 inches by 40. The factory has probably been turned into a loft by now, and some trendy IT person is probably sitting by the huge window with his Mac (in an Aeron chair of course).

And finally, when Albert comes in - our reactions will be just the same as these (in December 1955). The only false note is the two men in the background, who are meant to have expressions of 'oh, my goodness, a baby' but actually look, well, lifeless.

And this is how Albert will look in a few months. The mother has a look of Genevieve. Last night Lydia was meeting Albert for the first time as she went to give a talk about Persephone Books to a WI (Women's Institute) group near Genevieve's flat. After the Bath 1910-11 is by Henry Tonks 1862-1937 ©  National Gallery of Australia.

Nowadays this bowl (presumably early C19th) is on display at Smallhythe Place, Kent (National Trust) but once would have been used for a baby's cereal, or bread and milk when it was older. In case the writing is too small to read – it says: 'From rocks and sands and barren lands/Kind fortune keep me free. /And from great guns and woman's tongues/ Good Lord deliver me.' You might feel – from the spacing, and from the sentiment expressed – that 'woman's tongues' wasn't what was ordered, but this was in fact a well-known sailor's motto.

And here, once more in honour of Albert, is a painting by the amazing Fred Elwell, who painted the picture we use to illustrate The Priory. Again it's all in the detail - his hat, the flowered valance, the softness of the pillows. This is The First-Born 1913 © Bridgeman Art Library.

We feel slightly guilty about loving these John Bull and Saturday Evening Post covers (cf. 19 February and 31 December) as we suspect they are a bit kitsch. But it's the way they are a short story without words that is so entrancing. This cover (it's December 29 1951) is in honour of Genevieve, who worked at Persephone Books until she had – Albert, now aet. one month. © Bridgeman Art Library.

Emily Bronte's artist's box and geometry set, which is at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth, a few miles west of Leeds. Nicola of Persephone Books will be giving a talk here on Wednesday 24th March.

A Tom Purvis (1888-1959) poster for London and North Eastern Railway.

A photograph of the opening of a Leeds tramway in 1923. Our eyes are immediately drawn to the wife of the mayor in the centre, surrounded by all those suited men.

The Sisters, 1940 by Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) which hangs in Leeds Art Gallery on the staircase up from its beautiful tiled hall.

The County Arcade in Leeds in the 1950s, thirty or so years after Lettice Cooper (1897-1994), a Leeds writer, had moved 'down south'. But perhaps her novels are in the window of the book shop. © B Toomey and RIBA archive.