The Compleat Housewife, or, Accomplished [Accomplish'd] Gentlewoman's Companion

E_____ S_____ (Eliza Smith_

1727.

Hardcover (Full Leather). Good Condition. Item #CAT000972

Contemporary paneled calf, spine worn, lacking lettering piece, boards detached but present, worn at corners. Title torn w/ no loss, chipped at edges, tear w/ no loss in preface, stain to edge of 199/200 and surrounding pages, tear to final page with no real loss, index tattered at edges but with no loss to text, a number of plates with tears, one nearly separating into two pieces but no real loss. A host of minor problems, but still about very good internally. (16) 326, (16) with 16pp catalog at rear and six folding plates. Complete. Cagle 996, Pennell 146, Bitting 438 (later editions). OCLC shows only six copies, 4 in the US and 2 in the UK but not at the British Library.

An enormously successful cookbook that went through 18 editions between 1727 and 1773. Predating Glass and Raffald, it was one of the first really succesful cookbooks and has been described as the first blockbuster written by a woman. It includes the first printed recipe for English ketchup (katchup here) - it is close to a Wrcestershire sauce and for bread and butter pudding. It was first published as by E___S____ but was later adjusted to E. Smith in the fifth edition in 1732. Little enough is known about her beyond her thirty years of employment by fashionable and noble families as mentioned in the preface. It's influence extended across the Atlantic and in 1742 it became the first cookbook published in the American colonies.
Quantity Available: 1. Shipped Weight: Under 1 kilo. Inventory No: CAT000972.

Price: $3,500.00