The Gentleman's Companion
New York, Crown Publishers, 1946. Baker, Charles H Jnr. The Gentleman's Companion. (2nd Ed) Crown: New York, 1946. 8vo (245x160mm) 2 vols, red cloth bds in slipcase, [iii]-xix,[1],220,[2] + xix,[3],216,[3]pp. case solid, sm split, vols spines lightly faded, pencilled notes.
Second-hand hardcover
BAKER, CHARLES H. Jnr [Henry (1895-1987)]
The Gentleman's Companion: Volume I being an exotic cookery book or, around the world with knife fork and spoon; Volume II being an exotic drinking book or, around the world with jigger, beaker and flask. Including a company of hand-picked receipts, each one beloved & notable in its place, collected faithfully on three voyages & a quarter million miles around the world, & other journeys. And a personally collected regiment of world-famous lively liquid masterpieces from the Orient & Occident, & the South Seas.
New York : Crown Publishers, 419 Fourth Avenue, 1946. Second edition. First published by the Derrydale Press in a limited edition of 1250 in 1939. Price $5.00
Octavo (245x160mm) 2 volumes, both original publishers red cloth boards, gilt ruled, titled and decorated in original black cloth slipcase with two-colour printed sides: volume I, [4],[iii]-xix,[3],220,[2]pp; volume II, xix,[3],216,[3]pp. Frontispiece to each volume, tipped in. Slipcase faint wear to corners, case solid, 1 cm split to bottom rear edge. Both volumes, spines lightly sunned. gently faded, occasional pencilled marginal notes, else crisp and clean; bookseller tickets to rear pastedowns "Newbegins 358 Post Street opposite Union Square San Francisco".
¶ Baker, an engineer by training, a writer by preference and general bon vivant by happy circumstance was an American who traveled the world widely during the 1920s and 1930s. Along the way he collected exotic recipes, stories, and cocktails like a game hunter collected trophies. In the introduction to this, his first book, Baker observed that "all really interesting people—sportsman, explorers, musicians, scientists, vagabonds and writers—were vitally interested in good things to eat and drink; cared for exotic and intriguing ways of composing them. We soon discovered further that this keen interest was not solely through gluttony, the spur of hunger or merely to sustain life, but in a spirit of high adventure".
This edition, reproduced the original Derrydale Press limited edition, "almost in facsimile"². Scarce in this excellent condition.
§ Institutionally well held internationally; only three holdings in Australasia, Deakin, Adelaide and State Library Victoria.
§ Noling, p.47; cf Gabler, (first edition) G9020; cf EUVS (1946 padded leather binding);
¹ Frizell, St. John. Gentleman's Companion: the worldly writing of the impossible-to-classify Charles H. Baker, Jnr. Oxford American "Best of the South 2008", Summer 2008, Issue 61.
² Chicago Tribune, Sunday April 28, 1946, p.68.
Item #3377
Price: $350.00 AUD