Acton.   Eliza     - One of the best written English cookery books.
Modern Cookery
In all its branches; Reduced to a system of easy practice, For the use of private families. In a series of receipts which have been strictly tested, and are given with the most minute exactness. By Eliza Acton. Illustrated with engravings on Steel and numerous Woodcuts. Fourteenth Edition to which are added directions for carving. London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, Paternoster Row. 1853.
8vo. Half Title. Frontispiece. Title Page. Dedication Page. [1] p1. Preface. [viii - xlviii] 8 plates. (plate 1 is the frontispiece) [1] 2-608 plus 18 pages of advertisements. Half tan calf, green cloth boards with tan calf corners and gilt lines. Spine with raised bands and gilt lines, 2 black labels with gilt lettering. Some even browning and a some foxing through-out, overall an OK copy.
- Elizabeth 'Eliza' Acton, an English poet and cook, produced and aimed this cookbook at the domestic reader rather than the professional cook or chef. In it she introduced the now-universal practice of listing the ingredients and suggested cooking times with each recipe. Isabella Beeton's bestselling 'Book of Household Management' of 1861 was closely modeled on it. Elizabeth David rated it one of the best nineteenth century cookery books, and television cook Delia Smith is quoted as having called Acton "the best writer of recipes in the English language". 'Modern Cookery' long survived her, remaining in print until 1914 and available more recently in facsimile reprint. Acton was born April 17th 1799 in Battle, Sussex, the eldest of the five children of Elizabeth Mercer and John Acton, a brewer. The family moved to Suffolk shortly after her birth, and there she was raised. At the age of seventeen she and another woman opened a school for girls in Claydon, near Ipswich, which remained open for four years. Her health was precarious and she spent some time in France where she is rumoured to have had an unhappy love affair. She published her Poems in 1826 after returning home and they enjoyed some small success. She subsequently published some single, longer poems, but it was her 'Modern Cookery' of 1845 that garnered her the widest acclaim. Shortly after its publication she relocated to London, where she worked on her next and final book, 'The English Bread Book' of 1857. Along with recipes and a scholarly history of bread-making, this volume contained Acton's strong opinions about adulterated and processed food. Acton, her health never strong, died in February 13th, 1859, and was buried in Hampstead, North London.

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Antiquarian category
ref number: 10911

Acton.   Eliza     - In very bright original condition.
Modern Cookery
FOR PRIVATE FAMILIES BY ELIZA ACTON NEW EDITION LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK AND BOMBAY 1897
151 x 172mm. 1 fep. [1] Frontispiece (plate 1) Title page. [1] (1)iv-viii Preface. (1)x Vocabulary of terms. (1)xii-xxvii Table of Contents. [1] (1)xxx-xlii Introductory Chapters. [1] 7p Plates. [1] (1)2-622. (1)624-643 Index. [1] 40p Classified catalogue of general literature published by Longmans, Green & Co. Engravings throughout the text. Clean and crisp original tan cloth covers embossed in red and black. Very slightly bumped corners. Occasional light marking to some margins, otherwise very clean.
- Elizabeth 'Eliza' Acton, an English poet and cook, produced and aimed this book at the domestic reader rather than the professional cook or chef. Elizabeth David rated it one of the best written nineteenth century cookery books. It also has numerous fine illustrations throughout the text. Although it is a rather late edition (the first was printed - 1845) it is none the less a very desirable copy due to the very clean original condition.

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Antiquarian category
ref number: 11115

ACTON.   ELIZA     - Her very scarce second book.
The English Bread-Book
FOR DOMESTIC USE, ADAPTED TO FAMILIES OF EVERY GRADE: CONTAINING THE PLAINEST AND MOST MINUTE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE LEARNER; PRACTICAL RECEIPTS FOR MANY VARIETES OF BREAD; WITH NOTICES OF THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF ADULTERATION, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES; AND OF THE IMPROVED BAKING PROCESSES AND INSTITUTIONS ESTABLISHED ABROAD. BY ELIZA ACTON. AUTHOR OF “MODERN COOKERY.” LONDON; LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, LONGMANS & ROBERTS. 1857. All right of translation is reserved.
FIRST AND SOLE EDITION. 8vo. 178 X 115mm. 1fep. Half title illustration of wheat sheaves with text and quote - "In no way, perhaps, is the progress of a nation in civilisation more unequivocally shown, than in the improvement which it realises in the food of the community." [1] (1)vi Preface. (1)viii – xii Contents. (1)2 – 204. (1)2 – 24 Advertisements. 1fep. Bound in original brown cloth with bright gilt design of wheat sheaves and text on cover. The back has a few water stains. The original spine expertly re-laid with the original gilt writing intact, slightly browned. Clean, tight and bright, with even very light age-browning through out. A fine original copy.
- This was the last of Eliza Acton's books. It is not only a collection of bread recipes of all sorts, from household bread to Sally Lunns, but also encompasses Acton's strong opinions about adulterated and processed food. It is also a polemic on unhealthy eating which is still relevant 150 years later. Although she was a firm believer in home baking, she also advocated machine dough; mixed in clean commercial bakeries, compared with the filthy conditions and hard lives of the English bakers of the time; But would she have been quite so pleased, had she foreseen the over-processed, chemically stabilised, glyphosate riddled supermarket breads of today.? The book also has chapters on different flours, yeasts, ovens and baking tips for beginners. Although it created a sensation when it first came out in 1857, unfortunately, as it was published two years before her death in 1859, it was never reprinted, and subsequently is now a rare book .

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Antiquarian category
ref number: 11204

Anon.       - No other recorded complete copies. Extemely rare.
The Complete Housewifes Best Companion
CONTAINING I. A number of the most common and useful Receipts in Cookery, with the manner of trussing Poultry, Rabbits, Hares etc. illustrated with CURIOUS CUTS, showing how each is to be trussed. II. The best Receipts for all kinds of Pastry, Pickling etc. with some general Rules to be observed therein. III. Directions for making all sorts of English Wines, Shrub, Vinegar, Verjuice, Catchup, Sauces, Soups, Jellies etc. IV. A Table to cast up Expenses by the Day, Week, Month, or Year. GAINSBOROUGH: PRINTED AND SOLD BY H.MOZLEY. 1808. PRICE SIXPENCE.
FIRST EDITION. 12mo. Frontispiece of Complete Housewife. Title Page. 2pp. General hints and a Table. (5-84) including several engraved woodcuts of trussing. The text is lightly and evenly browned throughout. Fully bound in modern light brown calf. Spine with gilt lines, red label with gilt lettering and raised bands. A nice copy.
- Not recorded in any of the Bibliographies or Libraries. Only one other known copy in a private collection, which has a missing frontispiece. A very unusual but interesting cookery book. Nicely set out, with unusually, the receipts for Pastry and Jellies in the beginning before Cookery. The lovely woodcuts for trussing are nicely laid out within the text. Not in MacLean, Bitting, Cagle, Hazlitt nor Oxford. Copac and the BL do not have any copies either. Extremely rare in this complete state.

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Antiquarian category
ref number: 10954

Anon.       - Rare; one of the first dedicated to sweetmaking.
The True Way
OF Preserving and Candying, AND Making Several Sorts OF Sweet-Meats, According to the Best and Truest Manner, Made Publick for the Benifit of all English Ladies and Gentlewoman; especially for my Scholars. LONDON, Printed for the Author, in the Year, MDCXCV.
The second edition 1695. 12vo. 1fep. Title page. 4p The Epistle Directory. 7-154. 6p The Contents. 1fep. Full contemporary dark brown calf with gilt lines and fillets on the boards. Spine with raised bands, gilt lines with a red label and gilt lettering. Text block uniformly but lightly age browned though-out. The last page has three light brown strips from previous old sellotape. Text not affected.
- There is a surprising similarity between this anonymous work, 'The True Way' and the two books bound in one volume, “Young Cooks Monitor of 1705 and Mary Tillinghast’s “Rare and Excellent Receipts” 1678. (see item # 10960 on this site under 'Tillinghast') The three books and receipts are remarkably similar with the three Title pages all proclaiming they are; "Made Publick for the Use and Benefit of my Scholars". The Epistle Directories of both books have the same similar statement addressed to her Scholars. (There is no Epistle Directory in Tillinghast's book). The 'True Way' does not have any indication of authorship, while the 'Cook's Monitor' has M.H. after the preface. This compiler suggests that Mary Tillinghast is the maiden name of the M.H. of the 'Young Cooks Monitor', and that sometime after writing/publishing her 'Excellent Receipts' in 1678, Tillinghast married and assumed her married initials of M.H. while keeping the authorship of 'The True Way' anonymous. At this point in time there is probably no way to prove this theory, but the startling similarities between the three works (bound in two volumes) are too evident to ignore. The BL holds two copies of 'The True Way', a first of 1681 and one copy of the 1695. A first edition of 1681, was sold from the John Lyle Collection at Bloomsbury Auctions, on June 2003. Lyle describes the 1st edition as 'extremely rare'. This edition not found in Vicaire, Oxford or Bitting. Wing locates copies in Leeds Brotherton, Clark Lib.in LA and NY Pub. Lib. One complete copy sold at Sotheby's in the Crahan collection at NY on Nov.18th 1986, but none recorded at auction in any other major collection. This one must also be considered rare.

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Antiquarian category
ref number: 10962

Anon.      
The Oyster.
WHERE, HOW, AND WHEN TO FIND, BREED, COOK AND EAT IT. (With a woodcut vignette of Oysters) LONDON: TRUBNER & CO., 60, PATERNOSTER ROW. MDCCCLXI.
FIRST AND SOLE EDITION. 12mo. 1fep. [1] Humorous wood-engraved frontispiece of two oysters. Title page. [1] v-viii Contents. 9-96. 1-8 Advertisements. 1fep. Original publishers coloured pictorial boards, very slightly worn but still fresh looking. With a re-laid sympathetic chocolate-brown calf spine with horizontal gilt lettering and lines. Internally very clean. A very nice copy of a very scarce book.
- Cagle p.657 - informs: All the wood engravings, as well as the ones repeated on the covers are by George Cruikshank. There is also an anatomical wood engraving of an oyster on p 30. Halkett and Laing attribute this work to Herbert Byng Hall (1805?-1883) and state that it has been erroneously attributed to Eustace Clare Grenville Murray (1824-1881) BMC enters it under Hall and the NUC under Murray. Axford on p. 312 miss-dates it 1959. Besides it being confusingly assigned to so many contributors it is an uncommon, interesting and scarce book.

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Antiquarian category
ref number: 11018

Anon.       - Very rare.
The English and FRENCH COOK:
DESCRIBING The best and newest ways of ordering and dres-sing all sorts of Flesh, Fish and Fowl, whe-ther boiled, baked, stewed, roasted, broiled, frigassied, fryed, souc'd, marrinated, or pickl-ed; with their proper Sauces and Garnishes: Together with all manner of the most ap-proved Soops and Potages used, either in England or France. By T.P. J.P. R.C. N.E. And several other approved Cooks of London and Westminster. LONDON: Printed for Simon Miller at the Star, at the West-end of St. Pauls. 1674.
FIRST EDITION. Small thick 12mo. 1fep (rather brittle and loose) Title page a little browned and cracked at edges, without loss. 2pp The Epistle. 1-430. 431-450 Bills of Fare. 14pp The Table. 8pp Book Advertisements. 1fep. Pages 292-309 missing. Original full calf binding without end-papers, exposed on binders cardboard. The binding is torn at the top of spine without loss. Very lightly age browned throughout. Overall a nice but beaten copy with the original binders stitching just holding the gatherings. With a nice patina.
- Oxford states; This must be the book that was denounced in the third edition of (Varenne's English translation) 'The French Cook'. Oxford further states, 'The English and French Cook' appeared in 1694 under the new title 'The Compleat Cook'. Arber states there is a 1690 edition called the 'The Compleat English and French Cook'. The BL and the Bodleian each have one copy dated 1674. Notaker lists in the US the Folger, Harvard & UW Madison. All editions are extremely rare.

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Antiquarian category
ref number: 11090

ANON.       - Extremely scarce to rare; one of only three copies found.
Every Family's Cookery Book
OR, PLAIN AND PRACTICAL DIRECTIONS FOR PROPERLY PREPARING, COOKING, AND SERVING-UP ALL SORTS OF PROVISIONS, COMPRISING MEATS, POULTRY, FISH, GAME. AND VEGETABLE FOOD. ALSO, Soups, Gravies, Sauces, Pies, Puddings, Pastry, Sweet Dishes, Sweetmeats, Cakes, Bread, Wines, Ale, Beer, Porter, Pickles, &c., &c., &c. DIRECTIONS OF CARVING. THE CHOOSING AND BUYING OF FISH, FLESH AND FOWL. BY AN EXPERIENCED COOK. WAKEFIELD: WILLIAM NICHOLSON AND SONS. London: S.D. EWINS &Co., 22, Paternoster Row.
FIRST EDITION. n/d circa 1850-64. 8vo 1fep replaced. Engraved frontispieces and Title page. [1] Title page. [1] 1p Introduction. [1] (1)8-405. (1)407-416 Index. 1fep. 10 plates of Carving, butcher's cuts, fish etc. Numerous engravings in-text. Engraved title pages uniformly browned. Slightly dusty throughout. With the original blind stamped and embossed dark green and blue fine cloth covers and spine with black relief and slightly faded gilt. Overall the text block is fine, albeit in a slightly used condition and with a lovely original cover.
- A cookery book with a difference! In the 'Introduction' we learn the book is the work of an Authoress. It is also very well laid out with very good plates that have obviously had more effort than usual applied to their production. The cover is very nice and unusual in its detail and presentation. Not in Bitting, Cagle, Attar, Oxford, Hazlitt. No copies in the B.L. Copac has 2 copies. One at the Guildhall Lib. London with no date, and another copy in Leeds, also with 416 pages, printed in Halifax dated 1864. This copy printed in Wakefield with same page collation, but with no date. A search of World Libraries provided no results. A probable minimum of 2 editions with this being the first. One assumes extreme scarcity to rarity.

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Antiquarian category
ref number: 11109

Anon.       - The rare 1st edition.
THE POCKET GUIDE TO DOMESTIC COOKERY.
BY A LADY. TO WHICH ARE ADDED INSTRUCTIONS FOR TRUSSING AND CARVING GLASGOW AND LONDON: W.R. McPHUN & SON, PUBLISHERS.
FIRST EDITION. n/d. 126x80mm. 1fep. Title page. [1] 1p Advertisement. 1p Contents. (1)2-114. (1)116-119 Index. [1] (2)1-44(2) 1fep. Original purple cloth covered boards with decorative blind tooling and slightly faded but still clear gilt oval device on the front. The back is slightly sunned. The spine has been sympathetically replaced with a dark brown morocco binding with gilt lines and lettering running lengthways. Internally in fine clean condition. A very nice item.
- William R. McPhun, born 1793? and died 1877, was a publisher and bookseller. After spending some years with the London publishing house of Longman, Hurst, Orme, Rees & Brown, McPhun returned to Glasgow to open a bookshop in Trongate. In 1842 he moved to larger premises at 84 Argyle Street. He was best known for his edition of the Workman's Family Bible, the first cheap Bible available to all classes. Despite opposition from other publishers and from some sections of the clergy, which included legal action, McPhun was able to price his Bible at just £1 and it proved extremely popular. Other books published by McPhun besides this book of cookery include legal texts, guidebooks, directories and maps. (see image 6 below for McPhun's comprehensive published catalogue bound into this copy). The recipes appear to be quite thorough in their detail, giving good clear instructions and as its designed to be carried in the pocket, has an overall sense of Scottish frugal practicality. All copies of this small tome of domestic cookery are very scarce. This edition on offer here is the very rare first. COPAC informs of a 4th edition of 1836 with 119 pages in Glasgow Public Library. The BL holds a dated 1855 edition. Oxford also records an 1855 ed.

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Antiquarian category
ref number: 11161

ANON.       - In the original state.
Domestic Cookery
1st Title page - DOMESTIC COOKERY OR FAMILY RECEIPT BOOK. BY A LADY With a small oblong illustrated Farm scene with a farmer and 2 cows. Under the farm scene is a small sentence - 'Blest are those homes with simple, plenty, crowned'. At the bottom is Derby - THOMAS RICHARDSON & SON. 2nd Title page - THE DOMESTIC COOKERY; A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR HOUSEKEEPERS: TO WHICH IS SUBJOINED, A COLLECTION OF VALUABLE RECEIPTS. BY AN EXPERIENCED COOK AND CONFECTIONER. LONDON: THOMAS RICHARDSON AND SON, 26, PATERNOSTER ROW; 9 CAPEL STREET, DUBLIN: AND DERBY.
130x85mm. 1fep. [1] Provenance on back of frontis in neat script; Mr H. Shulter. Merriot 1827. Frontis-piece with a round illustration of a lady cook holding a big jug in a typical Kitchen scene with a caption underneath – Domestic Cookery. Facing that is an elaborate title page. [1] The 2nd Title page. [1] (1)7-313. p 314-324 Contents. 1fep. No illustrations in-text but nice and clean. The original slightly stained light brown blind stamped cloth cover with Domestic Cookery in gilt on the spine. Internally, tight and bright.
- With gratitude I must thank Uta Schumacher-Voelker for clarifying the bibliographic details of this book. Until she helped me it had been very hard to get any precise information. She informs that this little book has the tendency to fool booksellers and collectors alike, because it closely resembles some of the editions of Mrs. Rundell's New System of Cookery in size and binding-style. Uta then elaborates very precisely that it is the last of four clearly distinguishable editions of the same book. The first edition is actually dated 1847 (Derby: Thomas Richardson and Son) Then follows at least three editions, all undated but with different imprints: #2. Derby: Thomas Richardson and Son, 172 Fleet St., London and 9, Capel St., Dublin [nd]. This imprint was issued before 1857, when the imprint changed to #3. Richardson & Son, 147 Strand; 9, Capel St., Dublin, where, according to records, they had their business only until 1860. #4. My imprint, here with the Paternoster Row address issued between 1861-79, but Uta estimates the date of publishing is closer to 1861 than 1879.

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Antiquarian category
ref number: 11193