And Van Gogh's Garden with Path 1888 © Gemeentemuseum The Hague

Two pictures for Eva, both from the recent Impressionist Gardens at the National Gallery in Edinburgh, not so far from Newcastle where Eva lived This is by Renoir Woman with parasol in a garden 1873.

And here is a recently-created publicity photograph of Eva's mother Anna Gmeyner (go back to the google link to translate the page). She wrote the startling and extraordinary Manja, which Eva suggested we translate and reprint and for which she wrote the Preface. Soon, we hope, an MA or PHD student will be gearing up to contrast and compare Anna and Eva's work.

And here is another picture of Eva, showing her love of books, textiles and flowers. This is her study in the house in Jesmond where she lived for the second half of her life, a picture taken by Ben Cawthra for North News and Pictures, Newcastle. The book of Eva's we wanted to reprint, but alas another publisher took it from us, is The Morning Gift. The original 1994 edition is available, so peculiarly but this is often the case, for 0.01p from amazon. We would strongly recommend spending that penny – anyone who enjoyed the short story in the new Persephone Biannually will love The Morning Gift.

Eva Ibbotson died suddenly last week and this week's posts will be a tribute to her. She had been a friend to Persephone Books ever since its inception, always quietly interested and always generous to us. Her short story 'A Question of Riches' is in the new Biannually that has just gone out.

One of the stories in The Montana Stories (published in the summer of 2001 and twice reprinted since then) is 'Sixpence', which Katherine Mansfield removed from The Garden Party because she thought it too sentimental. It's about a little boy called Dicky who behaves 'badly' and is sent to his room. His father goes upstairs to punish him, does so, and is overcome by remorse. This is a drawing from The Sphere, where the story was first published, showing Dicky's father sitting on his bed trying to say sorry. Although Katherine Mansfield disliked the Sphere drawings (which had never been reprinted until we put them in The Montana Stories) they are perhaps not as dire as she thought.

Marjory Fleming's handwriting, from the Summer 2000 Quarterly. A quick internet search turned up these interesting thoughts by Fleur Fisher.

We used this early 1900s kitchen © the Bourneville Trust to illusrate Round about a Pound a Week two years ago. It's on our website but can't be seen enough. Occasionally people accuse us of being nostalgia reads - we bristle a bit (inwardly) and think of this picture.

In September 1999, when we brought out Good Evening, Mrs Craven, Few Eggs and No Oranges and The Home-Maker, we put this delightful drawing (artist unknown) on page 3 of the third Persephone Quarterly. We had found it on the cover of the 1947 edition of EM Delafield's The Provincial Lady, a four volume omnibus available from abe.

More things from previous quarterlies and biannuallies, kindly scanned in by our work experience girls over the summer. This is a photograph of the shop in, we think, the 1950s. We are the shop on the left, the shop with white paper stuck over the windows is now Sid's (our excellent cheap and cheerful cafe, highly recommended for omelettes etc) and then comes the Perserverance, which seems to have been Taylor and something then. This appeared on the front of Quarterly No. 22 in the summer of 2004.

And something rather rustic and unsophisticated for the end of the week, chrysanthemums would be ideal. Available from Paul Rennie.

Late again today, for two reasons: four lime trees are being felled in our street in North Lonon and we and the neighbours are in mourning. Do not think we did not fight hard over thirty years but in the end, most regrettably (especially in the light of climate change) the owners have won the battle. And secondly we have had terrible difficulties with the reply-paid postcard that will be sent out to UK readers with the Biannually on Monday. At least that's sorted now. The trees on the other hand have gone for ever. So a beautiful plate - Wedgwood 1815-25, Japan pattern - is having virtual scones on it to accompany the cup of tea that has just appeared on my desk.

The post has been going for quite a long time now and we are not 100% sure if this jug hasn't been up before. It's the Persephone pattern by Ravilious for Wedgwood, matching the plates and cups we have in the LCS window. The Biannually and Catalogue finally 'went downstairs' at the printer yesterday, ie went to be printed, so last night we lay on the sofa with cucumber slices on our eyes, actually we watched Downton Abbey, Episode 3 is so unbelievable that our eyes popped - 'That would never have happened' we shrieked. The Biannually starts being sent out on Monday to the 18000 UK readers, the 5000 'foreigns' should get theirs ten days later. The Diary is already being snapped up in the shop, or we'll send it if you ring up.

The 1953 coronation mug, designed by Eric Ravilious (but for the previous coronation as by then he had been dead for ten years). Available from Paul Rennie.

Soothing pottery all week: this bowl, designed by Quentin Bell in 1986, is used at the shop for nothing more distinguished than elastic bands and paper clips, but the colours and the shape makes the mundane special.

Some calming poetry is needed after the website hassles we have had this week. Here is Yeats (and family) c 1930.

Without the original book it's impossible to tell who did this wonderful drawing, but if anyone knows please send an email (and if the email bounces back, it's because our Content Management System, something we would rather not have to think about but this week have had at the forefront of our minds, is being transferred to – where, what? to somewhere – hence the sharp-eyed will have noticed that our website is currently a month out of date and all the 'content' for September has gone - where?!). (PS 11 a.m. British time - thanks so much to the six people who have emailed. It's Quentin Blake! We are v. grateful to the six, also grateful that no bouncing apparently happened.)

The reason we were able to set up Persephone Books in 1999 was because of money inherited from the young man on the right of this picture, who was born in Germany in 1907 and died in 1991. This picture of him with his father must have been taken in about 1923; in another ten years he would leave Berlin and come to England. Don't miss a superb production of Isherwood's Goodbye to Berlin which has just started on Radio 4; its authenticity is partly due to its having been recorded in Berlin with German actors, but the script and the music are extraordinary as well.

One of the reasons this painting is interesting (it's Napoleon at St Helena) is because Benjamin Robert Haydon did twenty-four copies in order to try and alleviate his terrible financial difficulties. He was the subject of a marvellous book by Alethea Hayter called A Sultry Month which we wanted to reprint as a Persephone book but alas it has gone to a print on demand company – so it's technically available, athough it's probably easier to buy a secondhand copy from abe (or order it from, in our experience always reliable, interlibrary loan).

After the calm beauty of Ann Usborne's postcards last week, now for something totally different – and the theme is: men. Various aspects of them. This drawing (by Mary Shepard) is of the Vicomte de Mauduit, author of They Can't Ration These and also The Vicomte in the Kitchenette: Being the Art of Cooking within Restricted Space, which is where this drawing appears as the frontispiece. Here is Dan Lepard's comment about They Can't Ration These, and an overview piece about foraging by Richard Mabey. Last night (we were at the shop putting the new Biannually and Catalogue 'to bed') we were pleased to see that the People's Supermarket in Lamb's Conduit Street had Pfifferlinge (chanterelle mushrooms) which as children we occasionally picked in the woods near Haslemere. This summer we had nettle soup, and the garden has provided plums and apples and crab apples, so the Vicomte would be (fairly) proud of us.

Bedford Square, number 35 with two blue plaques, one for Thomas Hodgkin 'physician, reformer and philanthropist' and one for Thomas Wakley 'reformer and founder of The Lancet', and number 36, the Architectural Association.