The first publication of a manuscript receipt book compiled in 1694.  The author was the daughter of John Wallis (1616-1703), the mathematician and cryptographer and the wife of John Blencowe (1642-1726), a Northamptonshire Member of Parliament and later judge.  The manuscript was kept in the library of her daughter Susanna Jennens, at Weston Hall.  The Hall passed down through her female descendants until it came into the possession of the writer and poet, Sacheverell Sitwell, whose wife Georgia (née Doble) found the manuscript and with the assistance of George Saintsbury caused it to be published¹.

The manuscript separates some 90 kitchen recipes from 54 pharmacy recipes, but is otherwise unordered.  The recipes are written longhand in an informal style, many with practical and detailed explanations of the cooking process at appropriate times.  There are a number of still room recipes, distillations, preserves, drinks, and traditional English recipes as well as recipes from the Continent and the East Indies, providing a broad and representative cross-section of the diet of the late seventeenth century  upper middle classes, and by inference the extent to which their households were managed and self-sufficient.  The recipe for piccallilli and the elevated use of sugar in a number of recipes illustrate the increasing influence of the emerging British empire on the English economy, palates and kitchens.  There is also an interesting recipe predating the development of stock cubes for the preserving of meat by rendering it to a 'glue' that could be stored and reconstituted.

Guy Chapman (1889-1972) served in both World Wars.  During the Interwar period, he worked as an editor for several publishing houses and under his own imprint published a small number of elegant limited edition works for writers such as P Morton Shand and Paul Morand.  He also published Moncrieff's The Letters of Abelard and Heloise.  Chapman went on to be come a Professor of Modern History writing several books.  George Saintsbury (1845-1933) was one of Britain's foremost literary critics during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, now best remembered for his Notes on a Cellar Book.