Virago and Persephone

Virago Books are forty years old this year, founded by Carmen Callil in 1973, they have published new works and also re-issued out of print works.

Thirty years of Virago Modern Classics (set up to rediscover 19th and 20th century women's voices) was celebrated in 2008 with a series of new covers, which are beautiful and remind me of Persephone Books, who publish in an elegant format, forgotten and neglected fiction and non-fiction by 20th century (mostly female) writers - I have visited their London shop in Lamb's Conduit Street, also the home of their offices, founded in 1999 by Nicola Beauman.

Elizabeth Taylor

But for most people, it's the paintings and distinctive green spines that are associated with Virago, so I thought I'd take a look at a few to mark the forty year anniversary of the originals, such as the book of Victorian Ghost Stories with its cover featuring Jane Morris painted by Rossetti. Now the irony of this isn't wasted on me since at the moment I seem to be LISTENING to novels in my car, because the parts of the day when I'm driving are the ones that I can fit in the most fiction. And as my present listen is Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies, I was interested to learn that Mantel's recommended Virago read is 'Angel' by Elizabeth Taylor, no, not the actress, but a novelist and short-story writer Mantel describes as 'deft, accomplished and somewhat under-rated'.