Dear Reader,
The last few weeks have been a whirlwind as we prepare for our book launch that is just mere days away as I write this. Our beautiful books sit quietly and expectantly on the shelves of our office, waiting to go out into the world and into your hands, and our tote bags (in two happy-making designs) are folded neatly beside them, hoping to join. Meanwhile, we have spent the last few weeks being interviewed on various podcasts (please stay tuned if you want to listen!)—an activity we never would have guessed would be a part of our lives as nerdy readers. We’re happy to report that we’re learning quickly how to handle unexpected questions, to sit with the discomfort of not always having the perfect response, to celebrate the little wins, and to let the rest go and move on to the next! But one question we’re almost always sure to be asked is—how did we get the idea for Quite Literally Books?
QLB was born out of our long, lockdown telephone calls (no, we did not Zoom) in which we reconnected, as so many of you did, with your oldest and dearest friends. We were both hiding out from our families one day, enjoying a satisfying chat and wondering aloud, as new 50-year-olds are wont to do, how to shape this next chapter.
Looking longingly at the bookshelf, Lisa said, “You know, I really wish we could just have our own publishing company.”
And Bremond said, “Well, why couldn’t we?”
And that, dear Reader, is actually how it started.
In addition to being bibliophiles, we are both big into history and have long enjoyed reading old books. This, along with our admiration for Persephone Books, got us into researching American women authors from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We both considered ourselves to be well-read, so we were surprised by how quickly we unearthed so many prolific women authors we had never heard of. As ever and always, talking about books led to so much more—and soon had us considering bigger questions like, why have so many women authors been lost to history? The simple answer, at least in part, seems to be that male critics and scholars were the arbiters of the American literary canon in the early 20th century, and they just didn’t seriously consider works by American women authors as “literature,” either because of the subject matter—the home, relationships, the interior lives of women—or because it was women who were writing them.
And so QLB was born with the intention of creating new editions of ought-to-be-in-print books by authors, mostly American women of a certain age, so to speak. In doing so, we hope to be a part of ongoing conversations about essential questions of belonging and the American literary canon—Who is included and why? And who gets to decide? The more we engage with the words of women from our collective American literary past, the more we appreciate the many perspectives that are represented in these texts and in our present day reading community. It’s empowering us to voice our own. It’s helping us develop a healthy disregard for rules that don’t make sense. We believe there’s so much to learn from the past and from each other—and a good book is a good place to start.
When we consider a book to reintroduce to today’s reader, the most important thing is that it has to be a good read, pure and simple. Is it unputdownable? Is it one we think you’d like to cozy up to and spend a few joyful evenings with? Beyond that, we feel it needs to feel relevant as it’s not our intent to give these books new lives for the sake of history. We’re hoping to shine light on authors and works we feel hold value for us today, and we think all three of our first books, despite having been written decades—and in some cases, a century—ago are still fresh, each in its own way.
We’ve long known the best books, the right books, to be reliable companions with the power to nourish, comfort, thrill, or transform us. Back in 2021 as we began emerging from our pandemic cocoons, we found that to have “rooms of our own” was no longer enough—we longed to be out in the world! To connect with a book-loving community! We wanted to have in person—the inevitably good (sometimes surprising, hopefully satisfying, always thought-provoking)—conversations that follow a truly compelling read, to expand beyond our own voracious reading habits, to indulge in some historical sleuthing, and to shine a light on bygone women authors who deserve to be considered anew. And so, dear Reader, we set out to reprint them. And so we did.
We’re so loving this process of uncovering timeless reads, reprinting them using the highest quality materials, and getting them back where they belong—in the hands of readers who will savor every word.
Thank you to all of you who have generously credited us with being “brave,” which is, perhaps, just a kind way of saying crazy. But as Billy Joel once said, “You may be right. I may be crazy. Oh! But it just may be a lunatic you’re looking for.” In this instance, there are two lunatics—but we come bearing beautiful books!
Thank you for being on this journey with us.