Persephone book No. 126 was first published 100 years ago under the pseudonym ‘AT Fitzroy’ (the author lived at Fitzroy Street W1). The wonderfully titled Despised and Rejected by Rose Allatini (1890–1980) is everything we would like a Persephone book to be: by a forgotten writer who deserves to be revived and with strong themes: opposition to war, acceptance of homosexuality, tolerance of others, awareness that ‘it is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple, one must be woman-manly or man- womanly’ (A Room of One’s Own). And it is a very well written novel, and a page-turner.
