City, a 1952 poster by Edward Bawden to be seen at the London Transport Museum, a rather idealised picture of the City of London which, in the '50s, was still full of bomb sites and chaos: someone like Bawden must have been in despair as he watched so much more being demolished than was necessary ('what Hitler's bombs didn't destroy the local councillors finished off'). Visitors to the Bloomsbury shop often ask us where we get our posters from: they come from Lesley Sherlock or Rennies or from auctions such as Christie's or Onslows. And some are available reproduced from the Imperial War Museum, or indeed the London Transport Museum itself.

A 1943 London Transport poster by Hans Schleger, also known as Zero, who drew posters for London Transport from c. 1935-47. Vere Hodgson would have been extremely familiar with this slogan.

Useful for this time of year when the compost does not seem to have decomposed as much as the thrifty gardener had hoped. This poster can be bought at the Imperial War Museum.

An 1867 poster showing all the Thonet furniture then being produced; we have managed to obtain a few copies (they are c. 60 cm by 90) from Germany and they are for sale in the shop for £20.

The 1947 film of Sheila Kaye-Smith's Joanna Godden, set on Romney Marsh in the late 1890s, is on at the BFI on May 11th at 6.20. The novel has always been on our 'B' list; but is now available on google books, about which we of course have very mixed feelings.

This is Nancy Mitford: obviously it's the only way to write, elegantly dressed and seated comfortably at a tiny antique desk with a large notebook. The c. 1948 painting is by Mogens Tvede and according to Ancient Industries Nancy is wearing the Dior 'Daisy' boot. I wish...

This, or similar, is what replaced handwriting for many in the '60s (a 1965 Olivetti, now to be seen in the window of the shop in Lamb's Conduit Street).

This is about ten pages in to Mrs Dalloway and is clearly recognisable as the paragraph beginning 'There were flowers: delphiniums, sweet peas...'; although the published version is significantly different. Trivial point: VW used ampersands (first word line five), assuming it would be 'and' in the final version. The ampersand (beautiful word) is above the 7 on the keyboard & for some reason we rarely use it; which is a pity.

It is curious that so many British poets and novelists have vaguely italic handwriting – do they still? Here is Browning's writing. (The decorative rule on our edition of Flush – Browning courted Elizabeth Barrett Browning while Flush was lying beside her – has an italic look; whether this was deliberate or good luck is hard to say but when we chose it, it seemed slightly to echo Virginia Woolf's handwriting. Of which more tomorrow.)

And for those who are inspired to write in Italian/Italic handwriting, here is the template (although the first thing is to buy a special, italic pen).

Italic handwriting originated as a typeface in Italy, in Venice in fact, when this edition of Virgil was published in April 1501. Tomorrow The Society of Scribes & Illuminators (based, naturally, at the Art Workers Guild round the corner) are having an open day in London. Reading about the Society inspires the resolve to buy ink and a new pen and retrieve the beautiful italic handwriting which was once such a crucial part of everyday life (until the 1980s we wrote everything by hand, unless forced for some reason – publishers! – to type it up on a blue Olivetti, using carbon paper) but which has now been subsumed by mouse, keyboard and loyalty to Apple.

Still in Italy - Portrait of a Lady with Child painted on an oil panel by the Florentine Santi di Tito 1536-1603. This was recently sold in New York at Van de Weghe (history does not yet reveal whether it was bought by a museum or a private collector).

And here is Carpaccio's The Vision of St Augustine 1502-8. It's in the Scuola di San Giorgio Degli Schiavoni. There is something incredibly touching about the dog. And the books.

Our favourite painting in Venice: two women, originally thought to be ladies of the night but now it seems they are simply bored wives. Art historians have discovered that the panel (shutters, or cupboard doors) on which they were painted became detached from the upper one – which is now in the Getty in California – showing their husbands fishing on a lagoon, and they are simply waiting for them to return. Another painting which demands a novel to be written about it. Carpaccio (1460-1525) painted this in c. 1490.

A few days in Venice was a perfect tonic after the long winter. It is of course full of fascinating literary ghosts –Byron, Henry James – and this from the end of Mariana: 'Everyone had said: "Venice in August! My dear you must be mad. You'll never stand the heat – and the smells!" It was hot, but when you did nothing much except drift about in a gondola, what did it matter?' (Unfortunately the impoverished Brits cannot afford gondolas nowadays; but as per the instructions of Harriet our proofreader, the very first thing we did upon emerging from the station was to buy a seven-day vaporetto pass, still excellent value. So we spent many happy hours drifting on one of these; otherwise sat on our terrace reading; cooked restorative little meals; and not much else.)

St Paul's cathedral in 1940. Perhaps too sombre a note on which to end the week but whilst Listen to Britain was Jenning's 'masterpiece', the most famous of his films is London Can Take It! from 1940. Made for an American audience, it was an incredibly successful work of WWII propaganda and shown in nearly 20,000 cinemas there. It can be viewed online here.

These are sketches made by Beethoven in 1808 for his 'Pastoral Symphony' which Jennings used as the soundtrack for his celebration of rural life: the 1938 film, English Harvest. It can be viewed online here. © The British Library Board.

Here is Humphrey Jennings and here is an extract of his most famous documentary Listen to Britain, 1942.

We sheltered from one of this weekend's downpours in the BFI Mediateque, happily drying off and watching some of the dozens of GPO Film Unit's documentaries from the 1940s. One of its directors, Humphrey Jennings, was also a founding member of Mass Observation, the archives of which can be viewed online. The plaque above is from Bennett Park in London, SE3; more Jennings to follow this week.

We used a painting WVS Clothing Exchange by Evelyn Gibbs (1905-1991) for the cover of the classic edition of Saplings, this is another by her The Almond Pickers, 1950.