Yesterday we paid a visit to the delightful Persephone Books shop in Lamb’s Conduit Street, W1, as it basked in the spring sunshine, and left with a copy of their latest title, “Wilfred and Eileen” by Jonathan Smith. A novel based on the true story of a couple who fell in love and married immediately before the outbreak of World War 1, it redeemed what would otherwise have been a purgatorial bus journey from Clapton to Tottenham Court Road. It’s a beautiful book, and is enhanced by this glorious endpaper, a 1913 furnishing fabric by Vanessa Bell:

Persephone Books stock all our papers and boxes and share our fascination with pattern. When we came up with a new grey and crimson pattern with a mid-century feel, we thought they might share our enthusiasm for it, and so it proved. We hope to be publishing our new paper ‘Persephone’ in June. Here’s a look at the prototype, hand-printed in the studio two weeks ago: