Persephone Reading Weekend: Introduction, no. 30

Persephone Reading Weekend is finally here!  {I wonder how many blog posts will start this way today.} I've already dipped into two of my three choices (you wouldn't have been able to resist either, really, you wouldn't).  It's grey, gloomy, rainy, pouring here, and I've ordered myself to spend most of day on cleaning, laundry and taxes, with more reading in these books only as a reward for any minor accomplishment on those fronts. :)

I love to find biographical or social-historical information about the books and authors I read, so I thought I'd do an introduction to each of my books, and then come back later with a (glowing, I know already) review. My first book is Kitchen Essays, by Agnes Jekyll; it was one of the only Persephones I could buy here (and only a P. Classic, at that), but it's vintage food writing, which I love, and that overcompensates.

After learning a little from the Persephone ladies ('Gertrude Jekyll's biographer remarked that if she 'was an artist-gardener, then Agnes was an artist-housekeeper.' Created DBE for her involvement in numerous good causes, Lady Jekyll (as she had also become) first published Kitchen Essays (1922) in The Times 'in which she was persuaded to pass on some of the wit and wisdom of her rare gift for clever and imaginative housekeeping.'), I couldn't find very much else about her online.  {But please underline wit:  she is very funny.} I did find something better, though:  a wonderful review (those calf-heads again) at Dovegreyreader Scribbles, a tea party with Cornflower, and a wonderful blog (new to me) all about vintage cookbooks.

More soon. I hope your Persephone reading will be as wonderful as mine is!

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