My favourite bookshop in the whole of London is Persephone Books in Lambs Conduit Street. They specialise in neglected fiction and non-fiction by twentieth century (mostly women) writers. One of their classics is ‘Cheerful Weather for the Wedding’ by Julia Strachey, which has recently been made into a film. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is a sardonic and charming novella which was first published by the Woolfs at the Hogarth Press in Bloomsbury. Woolf said of the book: “I think it astonishingly good… complete and sharp and individual”. Persephone Books call it: “As delightful and perceptive today as it no doubt was seventy years ago: on her wedding day a girl knows she is about to make a serious mistake”.
The story centres around Dolly on her wedding morning to the Hon Owen Bigham. Distracted by the sulking admirer who lost his chance with her, an oblivious mother and various family members, and her own doubt, the bride-to-be struggles to reach the altar with the help of a bottle of rum.
Images: Filmofilia
