Persephone Books and Sid's (excellent cheap and cheerful cafe) in Lamb's Conduit Street, drawn by Lucinda Rogers one summer a few years ago. (Today it is snow-covered.)

Oddly enough, there was a photograph in Saturday's Guardian of Richmal Crompton, in a series called 'My Hero'. But as ever there was no mention of her books for adults.

London is this week's theme. Here is a picture of the library where Persephone Books started ie. it would not have been possible to reprint our early books without it: because abe had only just started, if we did not own the book (as was the case with William an Englishman), and because the photocopying laws are so stringent at the British Library, we could not have had it typeset if there was not a copy in the London Library available for borrowing.

The last Persephone author of the week is Richmal Crompton, author of the wonderfully readable and quietly incisive Family Roundabout. And here is another picture of her on her agent's website: it is rather poignant somehow that although we have faithfully paid royalties to them for ten years, Family Roundabout does not get a mention. But then does Dorothy Whipple's agent mention that six of her books are in print and beloved of a new generation of readers? I'm afraid not.

Diana Athill, whose stories we publish next year in a volume called Midsummer Night in the Workhouse (which is about the hard work, or not, of some writers in a writers retreat). Diana has been recording some of the stories – for download from our website – in her beautiful, eloquent and nowadays instantly recognisable voice. Here she is a few years ago, in front of the curtains of which she was so fond (but she still has a cushion in the same material): the fabric will of course be the book's endpapers.

RC Sherriff, author of The Fortnight in September and The Hopkins Manuscript: the former is one of our quiet bestsellers, the latter ought to be. 'Science fiction' is an off-putting phrase to many people, and it is true that the plot hinges on the moon crashing into the earth in May 1945; but we cannot recommend this superb novel enough, which – as with most of Sherriff's work (Journey's End, Mrs Miniver) – is about Mr or Mrs Ordinary in the face of adversity. (Fairly interesting fact: Sherriff's royalties are divided between Kingston Grammar School and the Sea Scouts.)

Margaret Bonham, author of The Casino, Persephone Book No. 48, with her husband Deryck Bazalgette (who has just died) and her two children. This is an uncharacteristically staid photograph of Margaret Bonham. It was presumably taken at her son's christening while she and Deryck were still living in a pacifist commune in Devon. Not long afterwards she 'bolted' (cf. The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford, one of the 'fifty books we wish we had published' sold in the shop). The family plan to establish a Margaret Bonham website and to put up more of her unpublished short stories.

Persephone authors this week: here is the 26-year-old Emma Smith, at the time of the publication of The Far Cry. And here is a Woman's Hour interview with her. (The 1948 Robert Doisneau photograph of Emma sitting by the Seine writing is now, Emma herself rang to tell us, available at the Tate as a postcard.)

The last Stephen Bone of the week (although there are many others on the Abbott and Holder website, as well as the Stephen Bone website), all now dispersing to different living room walls. This is Near Tenby, path to the Sea c 1946: it could be found in too many Persephone books to mention, because who doesn't walk to the beach down a path like this in their dreams, or if they're lucky in reality?

Hampstead Bus Stop c.1950 (actually I think much earlier because of the length of her dress). Well, there are any number of Persephone books it could be but for some reason this painting makes me think of Frankie in Hetty Dorval (even though it's set in Canada). Otherwise The Wise Virgins (because it's set in London) or Tea with Mr Rochester (because of the mood). And one final thought: the young woman looks weary, as if after a day's cleaning, so there is a hint of Round About a Pound a Week.

And this 1930 Stephen Bone, The Holiday Hut, should be a Persephone book in miniature, but which? There is of course a beach hut at the beginning of Saplings, but it's used for a very different purpose... If the painting was fifteen years earlier then it would be William – an Englishman. As it is, the best fits are Lettice Delmer or Miss Ranskill Comes Home. PS from yarnstorm a couple of hours after this Post went up: 'The painting made me think immediately of The Fortnight in September and the family's delight in being able to get hold of a beach hut to rent when they didn't think they would be able to. Almost exactly the right date, too...'

Jane u

Snow in Hampstead 1947. It would be very hard to define in words why this painting is so extraordinary, but you can almost feel the crunch of the snow and 'hear the silence'. Yesterday's painting had a Mariana feel (and cf. the Facebook entry), today's makes one think of Few Eggs and No Oranges, which may have been set in Notting Hill Gate but after a snowfall it too would have felt like this.

The Persephone Post this week celebrates an artist completely new to us. When a selling exhibition of his work opened at Abbott and Holder in London ten days ago people started queuing at 7 a.m! Here is the first painting by Stephen Bone 1904-58: The Round Pond, Kensington Gardens c 1930. It can be seen at Abbott and Holder until next Saturday 20th, then some lucky person will have it on their wall.

Croyle House, Kentisbeare, Cullompton, the home of EM Delafield and now Listed Grade II, photograph taken three years ago by Stuck in a Book's mother!

A lovely old photograph of the back of Carlyle's House in Chelsea, written about in The Carlyles at Home.  Could that be the great man himself?

The Holly Bush Inn in Hampstead where Mrs Rundell (most probably) wrote A New System of Domestic Cookery.

The house that Dorothy Whipple used as the model for the house in The Priory: Parciau in Anglesey.

Houses this week: first of all 9 Clarence Crescent, Windsor, where Mrs Oliphant lived from May 1872 until March 1896 and where she wrote both the novellas in The Mystery of Mrs Blencarrow. The blue plaque telling passers-by that Mrs Oliphant lived there can just be seen to the left of the porch.

A slogan that has the potential to become as ubiquitous as Keep Calm and Carry On. Except we can't all up sticks and move there. Unfortunately. This poster, which will be sold today along with all the hundreds of others in the sale, has a £600-£800 estimate. It's 1926 and is by Ethelbert (great name!) White (whose woodcuts we shall feature on the Persephone Post in the next few weeks).

This advice would not have done one much good with yesterday's underground strike. The artist is Annie Gertrude Fletcher, it's 1926 and the estimate is £1500-£2000, why so much higher than yesterday's beauty is not clear, could it simply be that it's smaller and therefore more manageable? Or is it that the wonderful lettering is very eye-catching and the poster would look beautiful in a shop? Eg. at Persephone Books, we wish.

Now this would look extraordinary in any room: a painting of Monks Eleigh by the Ipswich painter Leonard Russell Squirrell, estimate £600-£800 and then of course the framing would be expensive (it's roughly 4 ft square).

Tennis Holidays by Lewis Baumer (again the estimate is £700-£900). The hairstyle might have been lifted from the artist's painting of Noel Streatfeild.

This Friday November 5th there will be a sale at Christie's, South Kensington of travel and vintage posters, the kind that decorate the walls of the shop in Lamb's Conduit Street and, in a fantasy world, would be sold in another, next-door shop called Persephone Posters. They are not cheap, but they are, surely, fantastic investments, and look wonderful. Here is At your service 1947 (estimate £700-£900) by Leo Dowd; there are three other posters by him at the London Transport Museum – where in fact the colour is a little sharper. The woman to whom the bus conductor is giving a ticket is surely Deborah in To Bed with Grand Music! And, look, there is a man eyeing her on her right!