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The Persephone Book of Short Stories
Most of these stories focus on the small, quiet or unspoken intricacies of human relationships rather than grand dramas. The use of metaphor is delicate and subtle; often the women are strong and capable and the men less so; shallow and selfish motives are exposed.
The dates of these stories range from 1909 to 1986 and there are thirty in all. The ten stories which are already in print in Persephone editions of their work are by Katherine Mansfield, Irène Némirovsky, Mollie Panter-Downes (twice), Elizabeth Berridge, Dorothy Whipple, Frances Towers, Margaret Bonham, Diana Gardner and Diana Athill. The ten stories which have already been published in the Quarterly and Biannually are by EM Delafield; Dorothy Parker; Dorothy Whipple; Edith Wharton; Phyllis Bentley; Dorothy Canfield Fisher; Norah Hoult; Angelica Gibbs; Penelope Mortimer; and Georgina Hammick. And lastly the ten stories which are new are by Susan Glaspell, Pauline Smith, Malachi Whitaker, Betty Miller, Helen Hull, Kay Boyle, Shirley Jackson, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Elizabeth Spencer and Penelope Fitzgerald.
The dates of these stories range from 1909 to 1986 and there are thirty in all. The ten stories which are already in print in Persephone editions of their work are by Katherine Mansfield, Irène Némirovsky, Mollie Panter-Downes (twice), Elizabeth Berridge, Dorothy Whipple, Frances Towers, Margaret Bonham, Diana Gardner and Diana Athill. The ten stories which have already been published in the Quarterly and Biannually are by EM Delafield; Dorothy Parker; Dorothy Whipple; Edith Wharton; Phyllis Bentley; Dorothy Canfield Fisher; Norah Hoult; Angelica Gibbs; Penelope Mortimer; and Georgina Hammick. And lastly the ten stories which are new are by Susan Glaspell, Pauline Smith, Malachi Whitaker, Betty Miller, Helen Hull, Kay Boyle, Shirley Jackson, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Elizabeth Spencer and Penelope Fitzgerald.
477 pages, Paperback
First published October 18, 2012
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1052 people want to read
About the author
Susan Glaspell
224 books82 followersSusan Keating Glaspell (July 1, 1876 – July 27, 1948) was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, actress, director, novelist, biographer and poet. She was a founding member of the Provincetown Players, one of the most important collaboratives in the development of modern drama in the United States. She also served in the Works Progress Administration as Midwest Bureau Director of the Federal Theater Project.
Her novels and plays are committed to developing deep, sympathetic characters, to understanding 'life' in its complexity. Though realism was the medium of her fiction, she was also greatly interested in philosophy and religion. Many of her characters make principled stands.
As part of the Provincetown Players, she arranged for the first ever reading of a play by Eugene O'Neill.
Her novels and plays are committed to developing deep, sympathetic characters, to understanding 'life' in its complexity. Though realism was the medium of her fiction, she was also greatly interested in philosophy and religion. Many of her characters make principled stands.
As part of the Provincetown Players, she arranged for the first ever reading of a play by Eugene O'Neill.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 46 reviews
November 4, 2021
An excellent anthology of women's short stories which also serves as a taster of Persephone authors. The tales are organised in chronological order through the twentieth century with mini biographies at the back, and authors include 'big' names like Shirley Jackson, Dorothy Parker and Edith Wharton to undeservedly less well-known writers like Dorothy Whipple and Mollie Panter-Downes. I might have chosen slightly different selections: Jackson's 'The Lottery' is excessively well-known; and Wharton's 'Roman Fever' is both well anthologised and uncharacteristically unsubtle in its vengeful ending. But there are some little gems here: E.M. Delafield's 'Holiday Group', Katherine Mansfield's 'Black Cap', Dorothy Whipple's brilliant, aching 'A Lovely Time'.
What the stories share is a concern with the small movements in women's lives: some are about the burdens of domesticity; others about moments of crisis between mothers and children, husbands and wives. Generally, the writing tends to the plain and unobtrusive rather than stylistically flamboyant or innovative, though that might be a choice by the editors to keep this accessible.
What the stories share is a concern with the small movements in women's lives: some are about the burdens of domesticity; others about moments of crisis between mothers and children, husbands and wives. Generally, the writing tends to the plain and unobtrusive rather than stylistically flamboyant or innovative, though that might be a choice by the editors to keep this accessible.
September 14, 2016
Favourite story so far is "Roman Fever" by Edith Wharton, a perfectly executed story about the perils of hubris, jealousy and pride. The entire plot behind the spoiler, it's worth reading for yourself if you can Good (obviously 100% spoilers) analysis of it here http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/13384/1/13...
In general the book is just really solid, outside of the one I mentioned it's hard to pick standouts but it's also very hard to think of any I didn't really like. There were a few that I didn't completely "get", had weird endings or whatever but none I was annoyed by or wasn't affected by on some level. All the stories are emotionally engaging and some are really powerful. Most of the stories are about sad things happening or just the grinding misery of every day life - quite a lot are about just the every day life of women, particularly housewives, having to work all day and deal with the emotional burden of children, distant husbands, money stresses etc. The time range of writing (1909-1986, with most of the stories coming from before 1950) gives a fascinating insight into the social changes that went on and the war era stories are particularly good for this.
A few stories I remember as particularly good:
The Test by Angelica Gibbs (1940) - A really short and powerful story about racism at a driving test.
The Exile by Betty Miller (1935) - A rich family get a Russian exile as a new servant but find it difficult to deal with her emotions and history. Great about the callousness of the rich and ease with which we can dismiss people who make us doubt ourselves
A Few Problems in the Day Case Unit by Georgina Hammick (1986) - About a visit to a gynaecologist. The subject and plot is very everyday but the story really gets across the casual indifference and the feeling of the patient being dehumanised and the experience of being a woman forced to confront sexual problems on their own.
Minnie's Room by Mollie Panter-Downes (1947) - very reflective of the social changes at the time, a rich family have to deal with their total dependency on their servant who wants to leave. The social context is fascinating and the attitude of the rich family is funny/sad and very recognisable today still.
There's more good stories I just find it hard to pick which ones are particularly good. But a really great collection I definitely recommend it.
Oh also in case it's not obvious all the writers in this book (and every author published by Persephone) is a woman. There's also a very short bio of each writer in the back of the book, which is helpful. Think the only widely known short story here is The Lottery by Shirley Jackson - it's a good story but would probably have preferred a more obscure work of hers just out of interest in what else she's written.
In general the book is just really solid, outside of the one I mentioned it's hard to pick standouts but it's also very hard to think of any I didn't really like. There were a few that I didn't completely "get", had weird endings or whatever but none I was annoyed by or wasn't affected by on some level. All the stories are emotionally engaging and some are really powerful. Most of the stories are about sad things happening or just the grinding misery of every day life - quite a lot are about just the every day life of women, particularly housewives, having to work all day and deal with the emotional burden of children, distant husbands, money stresses etc. The time range of writing (1909-1986, with most of the stories coming from before 1950) gives a fascinating insight into the social changes that went on and the war era stories are particularly good for this.
A few stories I remember as particularly good:
The Test by Angelica Gibbs (1940) - A really short and powerful story about racism at a driving test.
The Exile by Betty Miller (1935) - A rich family get a Russian exile as a new servant but find it difficult to deal with her emotions and history. Great about the callousness of the rich and ease with which we can dismiss people who make us doubt ourselves
A Few Problems in the Day Case Unit by Georgina Hammick (1986) - About a visit to a gynaecologist. The subject and plot is very everyday but the story really gets across the casual indifference and the feeling of the patient being dehumanised and the experience of being a woman forced to confront sexual problems on their own.
Minnie's Room by Mollie Panter-Downes (1947) - very reflective of the social changes at the time, a rich family have to deal with their total dependency on their servant who wants to leave. The social context is fascinating and the attitude of the rich family is funny/sad and very recognisable today still.
There's more good stories I just find it hard to pick which ones are particularly good. But a really great collection I definitely recommend it.
Oh also in case it's not obvious all the writers in this book (and every author published by Persephone) is a woman. There's also a very short bio of each writer in the back of the book, which is helpful. Think the only widely known short story here is The Lottery by Shirley Jackson - it's a good story but would probably have preferred a more obscure work of hers just out of interest in what else she's written.
September 29, 2016
To celebrate Persephone Books’ one hundredth publication, the publishing house issued a new volume of short stories, all of which have been written by female authors between 1909 and 1986.
Of the included stories, ten are taken from volumes already published by Persephone, ten have been previously featured in their Biannually Magazine, and ten have been ‘selected especially for this collection’. Each tale is ‘presented in the order they are known, or assumed, to have been written’, and the year has been printed after the title and author of every story, which is a rather useful touch. In fact, the entire volume has been very well laid out, with an accessible author biographies section and a well-spaced contents page.
The collection is a wonderfully varied one and features authors from all walks of life. There are many British and American authors, as well as others from further afield – New Zealand-born Katherine Mansfield, Pauline Smith, who spent her childhood in South Africa, Irene Nemirovsky who grew up in Kiev and spent many years in Paris, and Frances Towers, who was born in Calcutta. The Persephone Book of Short Stories begins with Susan Glaspell’s 1909 story ‘From A to Z’ and finishes with Georgina Hammick’s 1986 offering, entitled ‘A Few Problems in the Day Case Unit’.
The stories woven into the collection are as varied as the authors who wrote them. They encompass every aspect of life in their perfectly crafted portraits. There are first jobs, first loves, marriages, affairs, illnesses and death, and these are merely the more obvious themes which float upon the surface.
The protagonist in the beautifully written vignette ‘From A to Z’ by Susan Glaspell is a young girl named Edna Willard, who spent her senior university year ‘hugging to her mind that idea of getting a position in a publishing house’, and is then discontent when this dream is realised. In Pauline Smith’s tale ‘The Pain’, we meet a South African couple who have been married for fifty years, brave in the face of the wife Deltje’s illness. Smith describes the way in which Deltje has ‘a quiet, never-failing cheerfulness of spirit in spite of her pain’, and the story is beautifully and sensitively realised. In E.M. Delafield’s ‘Holiday Group’, we meet a kindly and rather patient reverend, who struggles to take his young and rather demanding family – his wife Julia ‘had gone on being blissfully irresponsible until she was quite grown up’ and has a particularly selfish streak – to the seaside.
Some of the authors in The Persephone Book of Short Stories are more well-known than others, but all share common ground in the way in which they all deserve to be read on a wider scale than they currently are. The balance of longer and shorter stories works incredibly well, as do the differing narrative styles, which range from the third person omniscient perspective to interesting streams of consciousness. Hopefully, this lovely volume of short stories will inspire readers to seek out other novels and short story collections by the authors which they enjoy in this collection. Each story in The Persephone Book of Short Stories is like a small but perfectly formed work of art, and the book is sure to delight a wealth of readers.
Of the included stories, ten are taken from volumes already published by Persephone, ten have been previously featured in their Biannually Magazine, and ten have been ‘selected especially for this collection’. Each tale is ‘presented in the order they are known, or assumed, to have been written’, and the year has been printed after the title and author of every story, which is a rather useful touch. In fact, the entire volume has been very well laid out, with an accessible author biographies section and a well-spaced contents page.
The collection is a wonderfully varied one and features authors from all walks of life. There are many British and American authors, as well as others from further afield – New Zealand-born Katherine Mansfield, Pauline Smith, who spent her childhood in South Africa, Irene Nemirovsky who grew up in Kiev and spent many years in Paris, and Frances Towers, who was born in Calcutta. The Persephone Book of Short Stories begins with Susan Glaspell’s 1909 story ‘From A to Z’ and finishes with Georgina Hammick’s 1986 offering, entitled ‘A Few Problems in the Day Case Unit’.
The stories woven into the collection are as varied as the authors who wrote them. They encompass every aspect of life in their perfectly crafted portraits. There are first jobs, first loves, marriages, affairs, illnesses and death, and these are merely the more obvious themes which float upon the surface.
The protagonist in the beautifully written vignette ‘From A to Z’ by Susan Glaspell is a young girl named Edna Willard, who spent her senior university year ‘hugging to her mind that idea of getting a position in a publishing house’, and is then discontent when this dream is realised. In Pauline Smith’s tale ‘The Pain’, we meet a South African couple who have been married for fifty years, brave in the face of the wife Deltje’s illness. Smith describes the way in which Deltje has ‘a quiet, never-failing cheerfulness of spirit in spite of her pain’, and the story is beautifully and sensitively realised. In E.M. Delafield’s ‘Holiday Group’, we meet a kindly and rather patient reverend, who struggles to take his young and rather demanding family – his wife Julia ‘had gone on being blissfully irresponsible until she was quite grown up’ and has a particularly selfish streak – to the seaside.
Some of the authors in The Persephone Book of Short Stories are more well-known than others, but all share common ground in the way in which they all deserve to be read on a wider scale than they currently are. The balance of longer and shorter stories works incredibly well, as do the differing narrative styles, which range from the third person omniscient perspective to interesting streams of consciousness. Hopefully, this lovely volume of short stories will inspire readers to seek out other novels and short story collections by the authors which they enjoy in this collection. Each story in The Persephone Book of Short Stories is like a small but perfectly formed work of art, and the book is sure to delight a wealth of readers.
December 30, 2015
I admire Persephone Press and, right now, I am having a short story moment so this book, borrowed from the library, seemed a natural choice. As you would expect, it is a fairly mixed bag. All the stories are well written and highly readable but some shine out more brightly than others.
A few stories ring as true now as they did when first committed to paper. Penelope Mortmer's account of a family's attempts to spoil there mother on her birthday, 'What a Lovely Surprise', have laugh out loud moments as mum is not allowed any say in her own special day but treated to presents she doesn't want, interminable children's plays and enforced idleness. Needless to say, each year she dreads the day and is thoroughly relieved when it's over for another year, as is her husband and probably the children, too.
Other stories make you grateful that times have changed, such as the quietly devastating story 'Wednesday' by Dorothy Whipple portraying the alienation and increasing distance between a divorced wife and her children. For a well-crafted story with a twist, Edith Wharton's 'Roman Fever' should fit the bill.
Anyway, there are 30 well-chosen stories so bound to be something by which the casual reader can be soothed, diverted or stimulated!
A few stories ring as true now as they did when first committed to paper. Penelope Mortmer's account of a family's attempts to spoil there mother on her birthday, 'What a Lovely Surprise', have laugh out loud moments as mum is not allowed any say in her own special day but treated to presents she doesn't want, interminable children's plays and enforced idleness. Needless to say, each year she dreads the day and is thoroughly relieved when it's over for another year, as is her husband and probably the children, too.
Other stories make you grateful that times have changed, such as the quietly devastating story 'Wednesday' by Dorothy Whipple portraying the alienation and increasing distance between a divorced wife and her children. For a well-crafted story with a twist, Edith Wharton's 'Roman Fever' should fit the bill.
Anyway, there are 30 well-chosen stories so bound to be something by which the casual reader can be soothed, diverted or stimulated!
May 4, 2013
This excellent collection of short stories brought out to celebrate Persephone Books 100th book presents a striking picture of women's domestic lives in the twentieth century. Spanning the years 1909 to 1986, these well-chosen stories explore relationships, disappointments and achievements which are remarkably similar despite the very different social contexts. As well as well-known writers such as Katherine Mansfield and Penelope Fitzgerald I was pleased to discover many new British and American authors who publishers like Persephone have republished and rescued from neglect. The final story by Georgina Hammick - A Few Problems in the Day-Case Unit - is worth the purchase price on its own.
November 10, 2013
Wonderful stories by and about women. There are 30 stories here with original publication dates of 1909 to 1986, arranged in chronological order so you have snapshots of society spanning over 80 years. Some of the authors are well known (Dorothy Parker, Edith Wharton, Katherine Mansfield, Penelope Mortimer, Irene Nemirovsky), others not so much.
I thought it would take me a long time to read them all – I was thinking one or two a day - but I just zipped through them! It was just as hard to stop after one story as it is to stop after one chapter of a novel :)
I thought it would take me a long time to read them all – I was thinking one or two a day - but I just zipped through them! It was just as hard to stop after one story as it is to stop after one chapter of a novel :)
February 17, 2018
From 1909 to 1986, this collection of 30 short stories featuring a variety of subjects from the more day to day sides of life, was a captivating read which was so easy to pick up and dip in and out of.
I loved the feel of the stories with their simplicity and with so many different women writers it was easy for it to feel fresh with each new perspective on subjects as diverse as motherhood, marriage, driving tests, being the other woman and schools.
I loved the feel of the stories with their simplicity and with so many different women writers it was easy for it to feel fresh with each new perspective on subjects as diverse as motherhood, marriage, driving tests, being the other woman and schools.
January 23, 2024
A delightful collection of short stories from some incredible women writers. This is the perfect book if you want to explore a wider range of authors from the 1900s without committing to a whole novel.
November 23, 2024
This was an unexpected reading experience. I’ve known that women have been oppressed, or that even just a few decades ago, the gender equality I can take for granted today wasn’t around. Most of the stories in this collection were written in the early 20th century, either in England or the U.S.. Most of them deal with either domestic life or affairs, and show how difficult it is to maintain a household, to keep up a nurturing, peace-giving demeanor to one’s husband, or how responsibilities are assigned to one which conflict one another and leave one trapped. I was particularly surprised to see that, while I’ve heard many times before about how women have been oppressed like this, it all felt new; I guess this comes down to the distinction between learning about a fact through theory or abstract description vs. through first-hand experience, and how fiction can get us close to the latter even if it is distinct.
I’ve felt that the proclamation that one’s social role constrains what knowledge and art one will produce has been overstated. I’ve tended to be more sympathetic to the opposing position that our ordinary imaginative capacities suffice for our occupying perspectives of people from significantly different social roles than our own, such that anybody who cares enough can realistically and rightfully write about anybody else. Reading through this collection marks the first time I’ve felt challenged regarding this position. The contrast is undeniable when it comes to characters who are mothers or wives who run a household. I haven’t been let down by how male authors of the canon who I’ve read render female characters before, and now I can see that their female characters can be unrealistic if they are mothers. The different capacities of male and female authors shouldn’t be exaggerated, however. I think the male authors I’ve read have been as effective in rendering female characters as these present female authors as long as these characters are up to activities which are external to motherhood or household responsibilities.
I was also thinking about how much I prefer the approach to learning about the oppression of certain social groups and the importance of social justice via reading fiction like this. No story felt like it was designed as a mouthpiece for a certain ideology, and no character felt like a placeholder for a type. This leaves it up to the reader to feel and think through what was wrong in the characters’ lives or social clime, and what can or should be done for individuals to whom society relegates certain responsibilities unfairly in the way that has been done to women.
Here are some of my favorites from the collection. Susan Glaspell’s “From A to Z” is about a recent college graduate who falls in love with an older man who reciprocates her love but cannot act upon it out of concern to protect her. I tend to be drawn to literature which centers on yearning, and this story was distinctive for centering on a particularly naive girl and her intention to care for and save another.
Pauline Smith’s “The Pain” involves one of the most tender treatments of love between partners I’ve seen in fiction. The wife of an elderly couple has chronic pain, and her husband sets out to take her to the new hospital a couple of towns away. It shows how suffering brings people together; warranted and unwarranted distrust countryfolk have of scientific experts; and how loving someone can sometimes blind one to their needs, or from the other side, loving someone can involve deceiving the other to not worry about oneself.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s “The rainy day, the good mother, and the brown suit” is about a mother who is exasperated in caring for her three children and the contrast between her attitude towards her children and the attitude of a teenage cousin who comes in and plays with the children. It captured the silliness and distinctive energy of young children and the self-undermining character of certain good intentions adults can have.
Betty Miller’s “The exile” was the saddest of the stories. It centers on a woman whom her husband has divorced and whose children he has taken away from her. This befalls her because she had an affair, but the causal chain goes back to her husband’s failures in their marriage, and likely further back to more complications which involve both the woman and man and certain aspects of their society.
A side note. It might sound tedious that virtually all of these stories deal with either motherhood, domestic responsibilities, or the difficulties of having an affair. But the authors have a range of voices and styles such that the stories feel significantly diverse, in spite of this thematic homogeneity. My partner pointed out how it's a bit sad how all of the stories foreground themes which match feminine stereotypes. He wondered why there wasn't more sci-fi or speculative fiction. In a sense, I agree with him, but in another sense, these authors deal with domestic themes in a way which reveals a new standard of good writing. Anyone can do sci-fi, but not anyone can do these topics at hand justice; and these topics are under-represented in at least the literature I've read so far in my life.
I’ve felt that the proclamation that one’s social role constrains what knowledge and art one will produce has been overstated. I’ve tended to be more sympathetic to the opposing position that our ordinary imaginative capacities suffice for our occupying perspectives of people from significantly different social roles than our own, such that anybody who cares enough can realistically and rightfully write about anybody else. Reading through this collection marks the first time I’ve felt challenged regarding this position. The contrast is undeniable when it comes to characters who are mothers or wives who run a household. I haven’t been let down by how male authors of the canon who I’ve read render female characters before, and now I can see that their female characters can be unrealistic if they are mothers. The different capacities of male and female authors shouldn’t be exaggerated, however. I think the male authors I’ve read have been as effective in rendering female characters as these present female authors as long as these characters are up to activities which are external to motherhood or household responsibilities.
I was also thinking about how much I prefer the approach to learning about the oppression of certain social groups and the importance of social justice via reading fiction like this. No story felt like it was designed as a mouthpiece for a certain ideology, and no character felt like a placeholder for a type. This leaves it up to the reader to feel and think through what was wrong in the characters’ lives or social clime, and what can or should be done for individuals to whom society relegates certain responsibilities unfairly in the way that has been done to women.
Here are some of my favorites from the collection. Susan Glaspell’s “From A to Z” is about a recent college graduate who falls in love with an older man who reciprocates her love but cannot act upon it out of concern to protect her. I tend to be drawn to literature which centers on yearning, and this story was distinctive for centering on a particularly naive girl and her intention to care for and save another.
Pauline Smith’s “The Pain” involves one of the most tender treatments of love between partners I’ve seen in fiction. The wife of an elderly couple has chronic pain, and her husband sets out to take her to the new hospital a couple of towns away. It shows how suffering brings people together; warranted and unwarranted distrust countryfolk have of scientific experts; and how loving someone can sometimes blind one to their needs, or from the other side, loving someone can involve deceiving the other to not worry about oneself.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher’s “The rainy day, the good mother, and the brown suit” is about a mother who is exasperated in caring for her three children and the contrast between her attitude towards her children and the attitude of a teenage cousin who comes in and plays with the children. It captured the silliness and distinctive energy of young children and the self-undermining character of certain good intentions adults can have.
Betty Miller’s “The exile” was the saddest of the stories. It centers on a woman whom her husband has divorced and whose children he has taken away from her. This befalls her because she had an affair, but the causal chain goes back to her husband’s failures in their marriage, and likely further back to more complications which involve both the woman and man and certain aspects of their society.
A side note. It might sound tedious that virtually all of these stories deal with either motherhood, domestic responsibilities, or the difficulties of having an affair. But the authors have a range of voices and styles such that the stories feel significantly diverse, in spite of this thematic homogeneity. My partner pointed out how it's a bit sad how all of the stories foreground themes which match feminine stereotypes. He wondered why there wasn't more sci-fi or speculative fiction. In a sense, I agree with him, but in another sense, these authors deal with domestic themes in a way which reveals a new standard of good writing. Anyone can do sci-fi, but not anyone can do these topics at hand justice; and these topics are under-represented in at least the literature I've read so far in my life.
January 18, 2021
It is the first time I have ever read a collection of short stories like I was reading a novel. Just got stuck in and found it hard to put down. Lovely range of stories with wonderful writers like Dorothy Whipple and Edith Wharton to name but two. Some sobering accounts of women's lack of power in the early part of the 20th century - Whipple's Wednesdays for example. Others show a wicked sense of humour and while there are some better than others, overall a compelling collection.
January 9, 2022
This book was a birthday gift from two of my friends and I just finished reading it over a second time (it's one of those books you can easily keep re-reading). I thoroughly enjoyed every single short story in this anthology, especially that way in which each story reflected the condition of women through various periods of the twentieth century.
As someone who doesn't normally read short stories, this was a great way to punctuate some of my heavier reads.
As someone who doesn't normally read short stories, this was a great way to punctuate some of my heavier reads.
February 10, 2020
There are some absolute gems in this collection, one or two rough diamonds, and also the odd fossilised turd... such is the nature of short story collections. However, the former far outweighs the latter. An enjoyable read from some wonderful writers, who not being male, never quite made it into the canon.
November 19, 2022
A really great chunky book of short stories all written by women. Ordered chronologically it was interesting to see how their time affected their themes and style. My favourites were The Photograph by Phyllis Bentley, The Test by Angela Gibbs and A Few Problems in the Day Case Unit by Georgian Hammick. What a great birthday present, thank you Alice!
October 22, 2015
Pure perfection.
January 8, 2024
It's an outrage that Dorothy Whipple isn't more well known.
March 11, 2015
The Persephone Book of Short Stories was published to celebrate the 100th title in the Persephone Press canon. An independent publisher, Persephone Press specializes in re-printing the largely forgotten and neglected fiction and non-fiction works of women who wrote through the middle 20th century years. Perceived and marketed as "middlebrow" fiction, each book in the series is carefully chosen to offer a fresh and new perspective on themes of particular interest to women readers. Their books are neither so "high-brow" as to be deemed "literary," nor are they what might be termed "commercial" writing, a sometimes pejorative label applied accusingly to books deemed to belong to the "chick lit" or similar category.
The Persephone Book of Short Stories covers a wider range of writing stretching from the year 1909 up as far as 1986. This handsome volume comprises thirty short stories, including the works of well-known authors such as Katherine Mansfield, Irene Nemirovsky, Dorothy Parker, Edith Wharton, and Penelope Fitzgerald. A works of a host of other lesser known women writers are also to be found within its pages, beautifully bound in Persephone's distinctive dove grey jackets, the "fabric" end papers taken from roller-printed and screen printed cottons representative of the decades marking the earliest and latest stories in the volume.
These stories all share something in common—they focus on the quiet, quotidian lives and events which mark a woman's life. Essentially each of these writers describes a very ordinary life, steeped in domesticity and so-called normal daily living, the details of which are mostly forgotten. But not by these authors. Perhaps their greatest achievement is just this: to recall to mind and imagination features of times past, whose circumstances still resonate in the lives of contemporary women, albeit in the tones of the times when they were first written.
In fact, what struck this reader was the surprising relevance of many of these tales to modern life. From wearied and harassed mothers to fed-up wives and abandoned lovers, this volume covers the gamut of female relationships. Indeed, the cohesive threads which binds and gathers these stories together are the very relationships which, even now in the 21st century, still tend to demarcate much of the lived experiences particular to women. As a woman, I could identify with the humiliating and demeaning ordeal the author Georgina Hammick described in her story "A Few Problems in the Day Case Unit" (1986), when her ankles were strapped up, and her legs stretched outwards, like a crucified figure hanging upside down, her most private parts open to the scrutiny of a bevy of male medical students.
Following the publisher, Nicola Beaumam's, advice to "compare and contrast," I next turned to Susan Glaspell's "From A to Z" (1909), a penetrating glimpse into the nature of altruistic love, a chastened and chastening emotion which evokes a kind of tender pain leading in time to a "blind, passionate desire" to watch over the beloved's well-being. Previous interests and minor dalliances can be as nothing when held up against a canvas such as this love greater than all loves. Our hearts ache for the heroine as she watches "a panting human soul sobbingly fluttering down into something from which it had spent all its force in trying to rise....a mist which she could neither account for nor banish was dimming the clear hazel of her eyes." Unanswered questions are scattered through this tale, musings mostly about what it means to love, to not love, to live a life chosen for oneself, or subjected to the will of another.
But not all the stories describe scenes from a daily life. Some, even after so many years, still send shock waves through the reader. Take, for instance, Norah Hoult's "Nine Years is a Long Time" (1938), a tale of prostitution with a twist. Or, even more shocking, try Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (1948) for size, and see whether you don't need to sit a while to recover before stumbling through the rest of your day. Short stories can serve as thunderbolts from the blue, blasting pre-conceived ideas and most especially, nostalgic reminiscences viewed through rose-tinted lens, into smithereens at the reader's feet. They seem so small, innocuous, innocent almost, when first you pick them up, unaware that this might be the grenade which alters forever how you look back upon times past. Beauman is to be applauded for including these subversive stories in her collection as a reminder that in so many ways, we 21st century readers are not so different after all, from our former female compatriots.
As a publisher of books written "by women, for women and about women" (from their website) Persephone Books shares much in common with Story Circle Network. Indeed many of the books in their canon are memoirs and non-fiction titles. As portals into the lives of women living in England from early to late 20th century, these books are an invaluable resource for those of us interested in finding out more about how our foremothers lived, what our fore-sisters thought, and the dreams and desires our fore-grandmothers yearned to behold, not just for themselves alone, but for their daughters and granddaughters too. I cannot imagine a more pleasant way of whiling away an afternoon than sitting in a sofa curled up with a collection of women writers such as are found within the pages of The Persephone Book of Short Stories.
by Edith O'Nuallain
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
The Persephone Book of Short Stories covers a wider range of writing stretching from the year 1909 up as far as 1986. This handsome volume comprises thirty short stories, including the works of well-known authors such as Katherine Mansfield, Irene Nemirovsky, Dorothy Parker, Edith Wharton, and Penelope Fitzgerald. A works of a host of other lesser known women writers are also to be found within its pages, beautifully bound in Persephone's distinctive dove grey jackets, the "fabric" end papers taken from roller-printed and screen printed cottons representative of the decades marking the earliest and latest stories in the volume.
These stories all share something in common—they focus on the quiet, quotidian lives and events which mark a woman's life. Essentially each of these writers describes a very ordinary life, steeped in domesticity and so-called normal daily living, the details of which are mostly forgotten. But not by these authors. Perhaps their greatest achievement is just this: to recall to mind and imagination features of times past, whose circumstances still resonate in the lives of contemporary women, albeit in the tones of the times when they were first written.
In fact, what struck this reader was the surprising relevance of many of these tales to modern life. From wearied and harassed mothers to fed-up wives and abandoned lovers, this volume covers the gamut of female relationships. Indeed, the cohesive threads which binds and gathers these stories together are the very relationships which, even now in the 21st century, still tend to demarcate much of the lived experiences particular to women. As a woman, I could identify with the humiliating and demeaning ordeal the author Georgina Hammick described in her story "A Few Problems in the Day Case Unit" (1986), when her ankles were strapped up, and her legs stretched outwards, like a crucified figure hanging upside down, her most private parts open to the scrutiny of a bevy of male medical students.
Following the publisher, Nicola Beaumam's, advice to "compare and contrast," I next turned to Susan Glaspell's "From A to Z" (1909), a penetrating glimpse into the nature of altruistic love, a chastened and chastening emotion which evokes a kind of tender pain leading in time to a "blind, passionate desire" to watch over the beloved's well-being. Previous interests and minor dalliances can be as nothing when held up against a canvas such as this love greater than all loves. Our hearts ache for the heroine as she watches "a panting human soul sobbingly fluttering down into something from which it had spent all its force in trying to rise....a mist which she could neither account for nor banish was dimming the clear hazel of her eyes." Unanswered questions are scattered through this tale, musings mostly about what it means to love, to not love, to live a life chosen for oneself, or subjected to the will of another.
But not all the stories describe scenes from a daily life. Some, even after so many years, still send shock waves through the reader. Take, for instance, Norah Hoult's "Nine Years is a Long Time" (1938), a tale of prostitution with a twist. Or, even more shocking, try Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" (1948) for size, and see whether you don't need to sit a while to recover before stumbling through the rest of your day. Short stories can serve as thunderbolts from the blue, blasting pre-conceived ideas and most especially, nostalgic reminiscences viewed through rose-tinted lens, into smithereens at the reader's feet. They seem so small, innocuous, innocent almost, when first you pick them up, unaware that this might be the grenade which alters forever how you look back upon times past. Beauman is to be applauded for including these subversive stories in her collection as a reminder that in so many ways, we 21st century readers are not so different after all, from our former female compatriots.
As a publisher of books written "by women, for women and about women" (from their website) Persephone Books shares much in common with Story Circle Network. Indeed many of the books in their canon are memoirs and non-fiction titles. As portals into the lives of women living in England from early to late 20th century, these books are an invaluable resource for those of us interested in finding out more about how our foremothers lived, what our fore-sisters thought, and the dreams and desires our fore-grandmothers yearned to behold, not just for themselves alone, but for their daughters and granddaughters too. I cannot imagine a more pleasant way of whiling away an afternoon than sitting in a sofa curled up with a collection of women writers such as are found within the pages of The Persephone Book of Short Stories.
by Edith O'Nuallain
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women
April 25, 2016
What an utterly devastating collection of stories.
I had the rare pleasure of being London recently and so got to walk around Persephone first hand. This was one of three books I bought and it's the first to be read: short stories to take a tour through Persephone's best known and discovered authors.
And I want to be upfront about this, I already knew that this sort of story was not for me. I have very little interest in the domestic life or Steinbeck-esque character studies of the everyday. I expected to be bored, a little resentful. I did not expect to be so engrossed, these 463 pages just flew by.
But I was engrossed, for the most part, by disbelief and indignation and anger. If these stories are an accurate portrayal of life in the 30-40's, women had it pretty rough and it's their treatment that makes this such a gripping read. There is curiosity and fascination that comes from reading about such casual cruelty - and it's a familiar cruelty too which is what makes it so devastating: who hasn't passed a cruel judgment on their mother or a female friend or taken their partner's sacrifices for granted?
The running theme through the collection then, is women and servitude. Both as parent and wife, but also as a domesticated servant; many of the stories in this book show us the life and times of the last hired help in the UK.
It's an interesting contrast, both parties sacrificing the better part of their waking lives in service of another - the difference being of course that for the hired help they can walk away at any time.
Not all the stories were note-worthy and some had me flipping pages but the standout stories for me were:
The Pain by Pauline Smith: reminiscent of The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro and follows an elderly couple leaving their earthern huts and small community to deal with the wife's pain...
Roman Fever has this fantastic closing line. I actually whooped. Also, listen to this whilst you read it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcII6z4EQoU
The photograph puts a mirror up to the aging, albeit talented woman and tells her: 'You cannot be good anymore, you are no longer worth looking at'.
The Test is a powerful look at how easily casual racism can totally f**k with someone's entire existence. It's one of the shortest stories in the book and one of the most powerful.
It all begins again was heartbreakingly real.
The Lottery has to be here. Shirley Jackson is the only author in this collection whose work I'd already seen and whilst this doesn't have quite the impact that We Have Always Lived In the Castle did, it's a standout in the collection and a short break from the misery afflicted only on the women(!).
The Woman Novelist & What a Lovely Surprise show the true potential for your life not being your own in mundane domesticity and the horror that ensues.
And the last story, just in case you thought things got better in the 80's...
Horrifying, harrowing, perfect for a reading group. Maybe not the best Mother's day gift :0
I had the rare pleasure of being London recently and so got to walk around Persephone first hand. This was one of three books I bought and it's the first to be read: short stories to take a tour through Persephone's best known and discovered authors.
And I want to be upfront about this, I already knew that this sort of story was not for me. I have very little interest in the domestic life or Steinbeck-esque character studies of the everyday. I expected to be bored, a little resentful. I did not expect to be so engrossed, these 463 pages just flew by.
But I was engrossed, for the most part, by disbelief and indignation and anger. If these stories are an accurate portrayal of life in the 30-40's, women had it pretty rough and it's their treatment that makes this such a gripping read. There is curiosity and fascination that comes from reading about such casual cruelty - and it's a familiar cruelty too which is what makes it so devastating: who hasn't passed a cruel judgment on their mother or a female friend or taken their partner's sacrifices for granted?
The running theme through the collection then, is women and servitude. Both as parent and wife, but also as a domesticated servant; many of the stories in this book show us the life and times of the last hired help in the UK.
It's an interesting contrast, both parties sacrificing the better part of their waking lives in service of another - the difference being of course that for the hired help they can walk away at any time.
Not all the stories were note-worthy and some had me flipping pages but the standout stories for me were:
The Pain by Pauline Smith: reminiscent of The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro and follows an elderly couple leaving their earthern huts and small community to deal with the wife's pain...
Roman Fever has this fantastic closing line. I actually whooped. Also, listen to this whilst you read it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcII6z4EQoU
The photograph puts a mirror up to the aging, albeit talented woman and tells her: 'You cannot be good anymore, you are no longer worth looking at'.
The Test is a powerful look at how easily casual racism can totally f**k with someone's entire existence. It's one of the shortest stories in the book and one of the most powerful.
It all begins again was heartbreakingly real.
The Lottery has to be here. Shirley Jackson is the only author in this collection whose work I'd already seen and whilst this doesn't have quite the impact that We Have Always Lived In the Castle did, it's a standout in the collection and a short break from the misery afflicted only on the women(!).
The Woman Novelist & What a Lovely Surprise show the true potential for your life not being your own in mundane domesticity and the horror that ensues.
And the last story, just in case you thought things got better in the 80's...
Horrifying, harrowing, perfect for a reading group. Maybe not the best Mother's day gift :0
May 1, 2025
this was thirty short stories so i think it should count as i've now read 45 books this year. i paid $35 for this at beacon hill books in boston and i wish i could say i'm happy with that decision
December 9, 2025
4 stars even if some of the stories make me want to bump it up higher.
This collection is a great mix of writers and stories, though mostly British and American (no Canadian that I recall, and a handful of French/Afrikaans/other). It really ran the gamut of life experiences and stages, though there were common story threads and experiences across the collection. Namely the constraints experienced by women (e.g., social norms and mores, legal rights or the lack thereof, health care issues, childcare burdens, etc.), abuse (normalized) by husbands and men in their lives (almost every single male character sucked in some way), the demands on their time and energy beyond what is reasonable by employers/husbands/family, the complex nature of (some) female friendships.... So much was tackled in 463 pages.
We got teen girls, young professionals, many mothers of varying ages, older women in their dotage (to use an old fashioned term) - it was great to see the (mostly white) diversity. While the stories themselves tended to be straight (thanks to censors etc.) I did see several authors had long-term lesbian relationships (or often described as roommates), which was nice.
While there were a handful of stories I didn't care for (The Black Cap, Holiday Group, Here We Are, Good Evening Mrs. Craven, Spade Man from over the Water, A View from Exmoor, all got 2 stars), there were a few I really enjoyed.
My absolute favourite was Roman Fever by Edith Wharton (I still think about that ending!) and the sole re-read, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. These were both 5 stars. A few others were 4.5 stars, such as The Exile by Betty Miller, A Few Problems in the Day Case Unit by Georgina Hammick, and Subject for a Sermon by Elizabeth Berridge.
I did enjoy the stories from 1909-1930s moreso because the daily context and details were more unfamiliar to me than the WW2 and later stories, personally.
My favourite element was hand-writing mini reviews for each story - it was a nice way to engage with each story and reflect on what I liked or just thought about each. Highly recommend for a more close/critical reading experience every once in a while.
Overall, it was a worthwhile reading experience after 6 years of patiently waiting on my shelves (and surviving several moves).
This collection is a great mix of writers and stories, though mostly British and American (no Canadian that I recall, and a handful of French/Afrikaans/other). It really ran the gamut of life experiences and stages, though there were common story threads and experiences across the collection. Namely the constraints experienced by women (e.g., social norms and mores, legal rights or the lack thereof, health care issues, childcare burdens, etc.), abuse (normalized) by husbands and men in their lives (almost every single male character sucked in some way), the demands on their time and energy beyond what is reasonable by employers/husbands/family, the complex nature of (some) female friendships.... So much was tackled in 463 pages.
We got teen girls, young professionals, many mothers of varying ages, older women in their dotage (to use an old fashioned term) - it was great to see the (mostly white) diversity. While the stories themselves tended to be straight (thanks to censors etc.) I did see several authors had long-term lesbian relationships (or often described as roommates), which was nice.
While there were a handful of stories I didn't care for (The Black Cap, Holiday Group, Here We Are, Good Evening Mrs. Craven, Spade Man from over the Water, A View from Exmoor, all got 2 stars), there were a few I really enjoyed.
My absolute favourite was Roman Fever by Edith Wharton (I still think about that ending!) and the sole re-read, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. These were both 5 stars. A few others were 4.5 stars, such as The Exile by Betty Miller, A Few Problems in the Day Case Unit by Georgina Hammick, and Subject for a Sermon by Elizabeth Berridge.
I did enjoy the stories from 1909-1930s moreso because the daily context and details were more unfamiliar to me than the WW2 and later stories, personally.
My favourite element was hand-writing mini reviews for each story - it was a nice way to engage with each story and reflect on what I liked or just thought about each. Highly recommend for a more close/critical reading experience every once in a while.
Overall, it was a worthwhile reading experience after 6 years of patiently waiting on my shelves (and surviving several moves).
December 28, 2013
I have read this book gradually over the past several weeks, enjoying each story. Some I have read previously, (as they are also included in story collections by the authors, published by Persephone).
There are some favourites here. I especially liked Sylvia Warner Townsend's story and have now got a collection 'winter in the air' (notably not published by Persephone but by Faber) to add to my current reading. I am drawn to stories that are set in the between wars years but was interested by the later ones too. The final story is quite a radical one, comparatively, but very well written.
This collection has been a pleasure to read. I hope it is the first and not the only anthology collection Persephone will publish. A Persephone Book of Short Stories II would be very welcome. As someone who enjoys the short story form, perhaps more so than the novel, I am grateful to Persephone for putting this collection together and helping me discover writers that will keep me entertained and give me much thoughtful pleasure. For after all, that is why I like Persephone books.
There are some favourites here. I especially liked Sylvia Warner Townsend's story and have now got a collection 'winter in the air' (notably not published by Persephone but by Faber) to add to my current reading. I am drawn to stories that are set in the between wars years but was interested by the later ones too. The final story is quite a radical one, comparatively, but very well written.
This collection has been a pleasure to read. I hope it is the first and not the only anthology collection Persephone will publish. A Persephone Book of Short Stories II would be very welcome. As someone who enjoys the short story form, perhaps more so than the novel, I am grateful to Persephone for putting this collection together and helping me discover writers that will keep me entertained and give me much thoughtful pleasure. For after all, that is why I like Persephone books.
February 6, 2014
It’s difficult to give five stars to an anthology of stories by 30 different authors, because there are inevitably going to be some you like more than others. That said, most of these are terrific. They date from between 1909 and 1986 but have many timeless themes. Edith Wharton’s ‘Roman Fever’ conveys the unspoken envy between two middle-aged women who had very different husbands and now have very different daughters. Dorothy Parker’s ‘Here We Are’, about a newly married (and as yet unconsummated) couple who fall out over every little thing, made me laugh out loud but was still very poignant: as with so much of Dorothy Parker, you knew it was going to end in tears. ‘A View of Exmoor’ by Sylvia Townsend Warner was another funny one, about a caged bird that has escaped from a family car. And Dorothy Whipple’s ‘Wednesday’, about a divorced woman allowed only a weekly visit with her children, was positively tragic.
A great book to dip in and out of, and to laugh and cry with. Full marks to the wonderful Persephone Books for putting this collection together and sharing it with us.
A great book to dip in and out of, and to laugh and cry with. Full marks to the wonderful Persephone Books for putting this collection together and sharing it with us.
July 26, 2024
30 short stories by women from 1901 to 1986. All very readable and well written - the actual craft of creating a story and writing is evident! - but I found many to blend into each other, interesting to see how early women writers were concerned with admonishing other women for non lady like behaviour! Quiet interpersonal relations, a love and a fear of children, weak and unobservant men, are themes which run throughout, sadly did not manage to find any lesbians :(
Some emotions of “finally some good fucking food” as we came to the latter half of the collection and proto-feminist discomforts and opinions rose to the surface. Still worth reading and an interesting journey through the mind of the educated white western woman over this past century. I am glad I get to sit at my own kitchen table and write, to say the least.
Some emotions of “finally some good fucking food” as we came to the latter half of the collection and proto-feminist discomforts and opinions rose to the surface. Still worth reading and an interesting journey through the mind of the educated white western woman over this past century. I am glad I get to sit at my own kitchen table and write, to say the least.
June 29, 2016
As a celebration to commemorate their 100th published book, THE PERSEPHONE BOOK OF SHORT STORIES is a great "sampler" of the works that Persephone Books publishes throughout their range. In total, there are 30 individual stories from 28 authors - Dorothy Whipple and Mollie Panter-Downes each have two stories included in this collection. Many of these short stories are available in Persephone Books-published collected works by the individual authors, and this gives the first-time Persephone reader an idea of particular authors from which she/he might be inclined to read more.
February 19, 2019
A stunning collection of stories by women authors between 1900 and 1990. There are pieces by known names like Katherine Mansfield, Dorothy Whipple, Edith Wharton, Dorothy Parker and Mollie Panter-Downes, but also many by authors I hadn't heard of: E. M. Delafield, Irene Nemirovsky, Phyllis Bentley, Betty Miller, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, and many more.
I'm looking forward to a pleasurable few months exploring the works of these newly discovered authors, most of whom (thankfully!) seem to have been prolific writers.
I'm looking forward to a pleasurable few months exploring the works of these newly discovered authors, most of whom (thankfully!) seem to have been prolific writers.
April 6, 2019
Short stories by women, primarily British and American, written between 1909 and 1986 and arranged chronologically by date written. Persephone is a London press that champions women’s writing. Guiding the choice of what to include in this collection: “Most focus on the small, quiet or unspoken intricacies of human relationships rather than grand dramas.” I received this book as a very welcome and much appreciated Christmas present from a dear English friend; it has given me many hours of quiet contentment.
September 10, 2013
A nice collection, a nice balance. "Roman Fever" by Edith Wharton was a stunner. I also enjoyed "The Photograph" and "View of Exmoor." It gave me a taste of some authors I have never read before, and made me eager to look for their collections or their longer works.
May 10, 2020
Some of these I really really enjoyed, and thought the writing was great in most. Would recommend just to increase exposure to great female writers of that era, and of the ones I liked I've definitely been encouraged to investigate those authors further.
February 19, 2014
I loved this book. So many wonderful and varied stories. And it proves that family holidays and the trials of being a mother were the same in the 1920s and 1930s as they are today!
February 11, 2014
This was a very diverse collection of short stories. the stories were all very different. i found them very easy to read and i really enjoyed reading them
October 2, 2014
slowly ticked each story off & it was very calm and contained.
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