In this way, Persephone combines both modernism and feminist literature. Most titles in the catalogue were written by women in the early or mid 20th century and focus on representations of the home in a genre sometimes called domestic feminism. The design was inspired by the simplicity of 1930s Penguin Books and the design of French publications.

Knight endpapers represent an industrial town in dark colours, reflecting the theme of the title. Most of Persephone's publications are issued in a uniform grey colour, with endpapers that reproduce prints or patterns from the year of the book's first printing. In May 2021 the Bloomsbury shop was closed and the company moved to Edgar Buildings in Bath. The success of Miss Pettigrew allowed the company to set up a new shop in Lamb's Conduit Street in Bloomsbury, where it remained for two decades. Sales at first were modest, but its 2000 reprint of Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, the publisher's 21st book, became a bestseller with over 100,000 sales by 2012. The company's first offices were in Clerkenwell, London. : 242 She was inspired by Virago Press, which had published her first book A Very Great Profession: The Woman's Novel 1914–39, and its commitment to reprinting lost classics of women's literature. Beauman wanted to upend the devaluing of women writers in literary culture and to restore previously lost works to the canon. Beauman named the company Persephone after the Greek goddess connected with spring who is 'both 'victim and mistress''. Persephone Books was founded as a mail-order publisher in the spring of 1999 by writer Nicola Beauman, after she received a small inheritance from her father. The company sells books mostly through its website, but also maintains a shop in Bath. Most books have a grey dustjacket and endpaper using a contemporaneous design, with a matching bookmark. The catalogue includes fiction (novels and short stories) and non-fiction (diaries, memoirs and cookery books). Founded in 1999 by Nicola Beauman, Persephone Books reprints works largely by women writers of the late 19th and 20th century, though a few books by men are included.

Persephone Books is an independent publisher based in Bath, England. Largely-neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers Not to be confused with Persephone Press.

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