The Physiology of Taste
New York, The Limited Editions Club, 1949. Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme. The Physiology of Taste. The Limited Editions Club: New York, 1949. 4to (270x180mm) qtr bnd tan pigskin, dec paper bds slipcase [2],xvi,471,[6]pp #393/1500 (translation by M F K Fisher; illustration by Sylvain Sauvage) Fine
Second-hand hardcover
BRILLAT-SAVARIN, Jean Anthelme. (1755-1826)
The Physiology of Taste or, meditations on transcendental gastronomy. A new translation by M.F.K Fisher with profuse annotations by the translator and illustrations by Sylvain Sauvage.
New York : The Limited Editions Club, 1949. First edition thus, limited No. 393 of 1500; 19th series, volume 5, unsigned as issued. Translation and annotations by M F K Fisher, colour illustration by Sylvain Sauvage. Designed and printed by R L Dothard at the shop of E L Hildreth & Co, Battlebro.
Octavo (270x180mm) quarter bound, light tan English pigskin, illustrated printed paper boards, slipcase, [2],xvi,471,[6]pp. Numerous in-text colour illustrations. top-edge small blemish; slipcase faintly soiled, else fine.
Brillat-Savarin was a French lawyer and politician during and after the French revolution. Renowned as an epicure and gastronome, he worked on his Physiologie du Gout, all his life, assembling it just before he died; it was privately published at his expense just two months before his death. Neither a cookery book nor a memoir, it is rather a discussion of the nature of eating in its widest sense. It starts with twenty gastronomical "aphorismes", perhaps the best known being "IV tell me what you eat and I will tell you who you are"; then thirty "méditations" and finishes with twenty-seven 'variétés' in the form of anecdotes, adventures, recipes and inventions.
"For the French and outsides alike, this work early attained the status of an exemplary culinary text, perhaps the exemplary text.... the Physiology of Taste civilizes eating. Moreover, it socializes food, and it does so by recounting in story after story our social relations with food.... [it] appears to us today as something of a sociology of taste ahead of its time" (Priscilla Parkhurst Ferguson, Accounting for Taste: The Triumph of French Cuisine, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, p. 31).
George Macy (1900-1956) founded the Limited Editions Club of New York in 1929 to publish, in limited editions of 1500 copies, beautifully illustrated classic titles to club members who had paid a subscription. Between 1929 and 1985, Macy published 548 books (roughly 10-12 a year) each individually designed and illustrated and usually signed and numbered by the best artists and book illustrators. The Physiology of Taste is the only 'food book' so published.
M.F.K. Fisher (Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher Parrish Friede (1908 – 1992) was a revered American food writer. She wrote 27 books, many on food and gastronomy. This translation, released on Christmas Eve 1949, was universally praised. "Craig Claiborne of the New York Times said Fisher's prose perfectly captured the wit and gaiety of the book and lauded the hundreds of marginal glosses that [she] added to elucidate the text."¹
Félix Roy, who went by the name 'Sylvain Sauvage' (1888-1948) was a French artist and prolific book illustrator. He illustrated several books for the Limited Editions Club. He died shortly before publication of this volume, leaving the print run, unusually for the Limited Editions Club, unsigned.
A fine copy of the most poetic and highly regarded English translation, delightfully illustrated.
§ Newman, R G. Great & Good Books:a bibliographical catalogue of the Limited Editions Club, 1929-1985 Chicago: R. G. Newman, Inc, 1989.
§ Zealand & Tarpey-Schweid. M.F.K. Fisher: an annotated bibliography, fourth edition. San Franscisco : the authors, 2013, pps. 21 & 48.
¹ Reardon, Joan. Poet of the Appetites. New York : North Point Press, 2004 p.203.
Item #10928
Price: $375.00 AUD