And another wartime Evelyn - an Evelyn Dunbar painting that (unaccountably) failed to make the cut a few weeks ago when we had a week of her paintings (only because the five pictures we did have were also so outstanding). A Canning Demonstration is 1940 © the Imperial War Museum. This could be a scene from several of our novels, particularly Miss Ranskill and of course Good Evening, Mrs Craven. And Rose in Housebound would have been first in the queue for a canning demonstration after she adopted her new role as cook.

The first edition was in 1938 but this fifth edition was 1939. The S stood for Samuel; someone must have decided that suppressing the first name and emphasising the androgynous Evelyn would make the pamphlet appeal equally to men and women.

Prisoners of War at Normandy Beach 1944 by Walter Rosenblum (1919-2000) © MoMA New York, Estate of Walter Rosenblum. The Post has been rather wordy recently, in any case what is there to say? Except that this must have been taken on D-Day itself, June 6th 1944, or a day or two later – a month before Rex Whistler was killed; and it's odd to think that these young men could have been born in 1921 like the four boys in Manja (good blogs about it here, here and here) and could be about to be 90.

Rex Whistler was killed in July 1944 in Normandy. (Here is a video showing the memorial glass prism designed by Laurence Whistler; there was more glass engraving by Laurence Whistler on the Post in early March of this year). Lest we forget – lest we become too focused on houses, textiles, paintings of women reading or chatting to their cooks – this week's Post will feature different aspects of the war. And we'll imagine that our books are going to start having covers and which image would be appropriate for which book: this poster would suit the opening of A House in the Country, or alternatively Miss Ranskill Comes Home, since it's what Marjorie keeps saying, bossily (cf. Stuck in a Book's post here, and the comments). The poster was produced in 1940 and was by Norman Wilkinson.

And this is Plas Newydd nowadays, at the back. Also, a brief word about what the Persephone Post is for (surely it's good to ask oneself what one is for every now and then?). Well, we do it first of all, and above all, because we enjoy it: any reader of Persephone books will understand that although the content ('the text, the text') is our primary focus, we also have a strong interest in all aspects of the visual arts and the Post (along with the Biannually, the shop etc.) contributes to that part of what we do. Secondly, the Post complements our obsession with neglected women writers by highlighting the overlooked, the less well-known, the forgotten in the visual arts. Thirdly, in general we choose images from the same period as the one we focus on in our books ie. the first half of the C20th but with little forays outside that period. (All kinds of other reasons for the Post's existence do come to mind but we'll leave the subject for now and return to it in a few days.)

Plas Newydd, or Anglesey Castle as it was then called, c. 1900, around the time the 5th Marquess's was squandering the family fortune (rather unbelievable details here) so that the estate passed to the 6th Marquess. He created the harmonious family life embodied in the Music Room painting (and became a close friend of Rex Whistler). The Music Room is in the central wing - the three large windows on the ground floor. You go in to the house through the large doorway just to the right of it, which Whistler redesigned in his inimitable style.

This painting of the Music Room at Plas Newydd was begun by Rex Whistler in 1938 but never finished (presumably because of the outbreak of war the following year - he would spend the next four years in the Welsh Guards). The present Marquess of Anglesey (who was then 16) is painting at the easel; Lady Caroline Paget, Whistler's great love, is standing in the doorway (she is the most obviously unfinished part of the painting); the 6th Marquess (who would die in 1947) is sitting in the armchair; and the Marchioness is playing the piano with her daughters Lady Mary and Lady Katharine standing behind her. This painting is taken from the beautifully produced and wonderfully written 2010 National Trust booklet about Plas Newydd which is available here for £5.39 and worth every penny - both the text and the photographs are superb.

And here is a detail. Oddly enough, it looks a little like the way Ortigia would have looked in the eighteenth century (cf. the Post for early January).

Plas Newydd: for years it has been an unreachable idyll, the place which Rex Whistler loved, where he painted his most famous mural and where, now, some of his early work and his letters and several paintings are on display. And on Saturday we finally got there. Only to find it has been – National Trustified. There is nothing to say without sounding appallingly elitist, so best not to say anything. But look at this page and grieve. Worse, there was a guide sounding off for the entire half an hour that we hovered round the mural longing to look at it in peace and quiet. So: do go there, for the house and its setting by the water is extraordinary and Whistler was an undoubted genius . But if you are the kind of person who can't stand the Duncan and Vanessa chat at Charleston, then you will feel the same about the way Rex Whistler is treated at Plas Newydd. Here, in any event, is the mural, in a photograph taken from The Laughter and the Urn, the superb 1985 biography of his brother by Laurence Whistler (and luckily it is minus the large red leather chairs that are inflicted on the table nowadays).

Yesterday was spent in Bath, at the hot water Spa and on a Sack of Bath walk, more of that in the Fortnightly Letter later today, and in the evening I went to supper with an old friend who has moved to Daniel Street (and looks at the back of the house Jane Austen stayed in at 4 Sydney Place). There was the very curtain material that I was going to put on the Post today! It is Cote d'Azur and is apparently late 1970s, the curtains having moved with her several times. This is in fact the fabric that has survived best, in the sense that quite a few households still have it and it is as bright and fresh as ever, so that for many people Cote d'Azur is Collier Campbell. Do try and go to the exhibition at the National Theatre if you can. Although it has a few shortcomings, you will see an amazing celebration of an extraordinary duo.

According to the V and A this fabric is called Kasak. It is, in our opinion, the most beautiful of them all; and is apparently 1977, which means that our old Parker Knoll armchair had a new loose cover thirty-five years ago and has lasted incredibly well; except for the arm on one side (yes, the dear departed Sasha whom I wanted to call Flush when we got him in 1993 but was overruled) for there is something about the pattern and the colours which never cloys or dates, we love the chair as much as we ever did. Having said that, we also have a couple of pvc - plasticised - shopping bags which are very useful for vegetables but there is something about Kasak in pvc which is, well, faintly 1970s, in a bad way. If the bags got lost or a child borrowed them I wouldn't mind. Ironically, they never do. Ah ha! I think I'll put one in the shop window, next to the Diana Athill fabric (1970s) and the John Piper (1960s) as a retro object. (This is home-scanning again, showing how bright the chair cover still looks.)

This is 'Kilim', date unknown but could it have been a duvet cover (among other things) about twenty years ago? (Where on earth is it now? I blame a child thinking it would look cool in their room at university.) Here is a short but interesting article about the CC studio and archive.

So here is Collier Campbell's 'Bauhaus' which my sister has both as curtains and as a chair, we now only have one piece left which for some reason is the car cushion, it's funny when an old car cushion suddenly becomes a designer classic. Years ago I bought a bit of Omega fabric from Anthony d'Offay, the one we have used for Katherine Mansfield's Journal; the fabric was already faded by the time it became a cushion for the children to punch, the dog to scratch at, and feet to rest on, and eventually it had to be thrown away. BUT it gave years and years of joy even in its faded form, so no regrets. Ditto with the car cushion. Which will stay there (although I would have lent it to the National Theatre. Item 53: cushion made of Bauhaus fabric date unknown but probably 1980s. Surprisingly unfaded. Not for sale. Or whatever).

The Collier Campbell exhibition was just slightly disappointing – although of course it was wonderful to see the tribute to both of them and to Susan Collier (who very sadly died a month ago, here is the Guardian obituary). It is a large exhibition, on the first floor of the National Theatre – and how extraordinary to see the range of both SC and SC's work. Perhaps because it was in celebration of fifty years of a partnership, and also their relaunch as a design company, it was a little dull – all the fabrics were behind glass in a rather archival way and despite the exhibition being at the National (which has incredible sets on stage) there was nothing imaginative like actual curtains hanging in front of a window or a sofa or even cushions (although there are a couple of beautiful dresses in CC fabrics). How great it would have been to mock up a 1970s kitchen amidst the slightly arid concrete soullessness of the National, a room with a sofa and armchair (my sister could have lent hers, it's covered in 'Bauhaus') and tablecloth all designed by CC, and with 1970s props. Nor were all the textiles on display, fair enough, but this one, for example, was only there as a sketch and not in its actual gloriousness (seen here thanks to my new niftiness with a scanner, apologies for having forgotten to write down the details, but it's probably 1980s). The beauty of this pattern reminds me every single day (we have it as cushions) of CC's triumphant sense of colour and design.

Girl in a Red Hat 1916 was sold at Sotheby's in New York in November 2010 and apparently has never been shown in the UK. The copyright laws are a mystery – you can buy this painting as a '100% handmade reproduction' here, presumably with the agreement both of the owner and the Harold Harvey Estate. 'Reproductions' are interesting: we love posters at Persephone Books (railway, Shell etc) and we are very pleased to be able to put a painting on the Post (and on the front of the ten Classics), but a lifesize reproduction – no, it doesn't quite do it for us, hope we aren't snobs but it's simply that we prefer the 'actual' and the genuine. Harold Harvey is so au courant with his love of stripes! (Dashing now to the Collier Campbell exhibition at the National Theatre.)

The Leisure Hour - Portrait of the Artist's Wife Gertrude reading 1917 is not in the 2001 book about Harold Harvey and is in fact for sale at Richard Green, which compares it with Hammershoi ('although this comfortable scene has none of Hammershoi's melancholy'). But looking at it, and the other Harvey paintings on this week's Post, makes one think first of Vermeer. (Someone wrote to Dorothy Whipple once comparing her at length to Vermeer, and whether or not this is justified, certainly each Harold Harvey painting could have inspired a Dorothy Whipple novel or short story.) An hour of 'leisure' (nicely old-fashioned word). A dress in Persephone grey! A comfortable chair with a cushion for her head. Yellow walls. White flowers (?roses). The only flicker of unease comes from the painting's date - right in the middle of WW1 - and for this reason most modern viewers would imbue it with a touch of melancholy.

The same stripy sheet, although in a paler blue, can be seen in A Kitchen Interior 1918 © Brighton and Hove Museum and Art Gallery (if this painting seems familiar it's because it was on the front of the Persephone Biannually No. 6). The sheet is hanging from a Sheila Maid clothes airer: no home should be without one, they are available here in the UK and will soon be available from Ancient Industries. I'd say this was also 'the artist's wife' and if the girl on the right is helping her, she looks very relaxed and bien dans sa peau – unlike the older woman in the white, nun-like dress five years later, who has an unfortunate Mrs Danvers quality - definitely prefer the atmosphere of this painting to the lobster one!

It used to be difficult to see Harold Harvey's paintings (and still is difficult to see the real thing) but now there are various websites devoted to him (this one is in Russian curiously enough and this one publicises the book about him, Harold Harvey: Painter of Cornwall 2001). My Kitchen 1923 © Oldham Art Gallery is, like several of Harold Harvey's other paintings, uncomfortable from a 21st century perspective because of the relationship between 'mistress' and 'servant'. And very few of us would contemplate cooking a lobster, for all kinds of reasons (cf. the scene in the excellent film about a family holiday on Tresco, Archipelago).

So there was only one Harold Harvey on display at Penlee House, the others are presumably in store, but here is one you might be lucky enough to catch on another occasion – Laura and Paul Jewill Hill 1915.

The Persephone Post has mentioned Ben Pentreath before, because his shop is round the corner in Rugby Street and we often send people there, telling them, rather gushingly that his is the best shop ever. Now it's the weekend-away season, present-finding time is upon us and this shop can always be relied on. There is something magical about pink lustreware – any kitchen is transformed (on the daffodil-in-a-milkbottle principle ie. a depressing room is always improved if you tidy up and have some flowers in any kind of vase) by a beautiful jug with flowers. At this time of year, in England, it would be roses. This jug is £35, although I am not going to risk it on the train to Cornwall.

This iconic photograph was in a Persephone Quarterly a few years ago. Even while the Blitz continues, the family has a tablecloth and the vegetables are in a dish not just plonked on the table in a saucepan. With a magnifying glass you can see that the large dish by the father is potatoes and the mother is carving a joint of meat, anyway doing something on one of those large blue and white plates that used to be ubiquitous. The caption is: 'Families Must Eat. After the raids on the East End there was n panic exodus; people preferred to cling to what was left and help neighbours who had suffered most. The woman on the left and the girl on the right lived in the ruined house across the road. Dinner was cooked over a fire made gipsy-fashion in the basement.' Now, a caveat, this may have been a set-up for propaganda purposes. Nevertheless. You'll find it on page 68 of the 1942 booklet Frontline, amazingly enough copies are available on abe at a rather reasonable price even though this is a very rare book and an extraordinary contemporary record. Perhaps we need to be shaken out of our complacent June summeriness the week after next (next week being Harold Harvey) and have more of the Frontline photographs. Just in case we should forget what was happening in London seventy years ago.

A plate designed by Clare Leighton in 1952. Her book Four Hedges in back in print in a beautifully produced edition using the illustration on the front that we have always used to accompany Mariana. Clare Leighton's work should be much better known: it is a pity that most people only know her as the sister of Roland Leighton, immortalised in Vera Brittain's Testament of Youth. This plate, which was designed in America (where Clare Leighton went to live in 1939), was manufactured by Wedgwood and is for sale here for £100. Apparently the organisation Support Historic New England has a set of all twelve plates. (Someone should write to them about supporting Dorothy Canfield Fisher, who deserves far more attention than she gets in America, or even New England, well I'm afraid she gets hardly any. A mystery: The Home-Maker is one of the great books of the twentieth century.)