The Cook's Complete Guide
London, George Virtue, [ca.1826]. A Lady [Copley, Esther]. The Cook's Complete Guide. George Virtue: London, [ca.1826]. 4to (225x140mm) rebacked, half bnd, black calf, marbled bds, [6],iv,[2], 838,[2]pp. 10 plates.
Second-hand hardcover
A LADY, authoress of "Cottage Comforts" [COPLEY, Esther Hewlett née Beuzeville (1786 - 1851)]
The Cook's Complete Guide, on the principles of frugality, comfort, and elegance including the art of carving, and the most approved method of setting-out a table explained by numerous copper-plate engravings, instructions for preserving health,, and attaining old age; with directions for breeding and fattening all sorts of poultry, and for the management of bees, rabbits, pigs, &c. &c. Rules for cultivating a garden and numerous useful receipts.
London : George Virtue, 26 Ivy Lane, Paternoster-Row, undated, circa 1826¹. First edition.
Quarto (225x135mm) half-bound dark brown calf, five raised bands, lettered and ruled in gilt, reinforced cloth hinges, marbled boards and endpapers, all edges marbled 838pp : [A]4, B4 - 5O4. Engraved frontispiece, added engraved title page with alternate title "The New London Cookery and Complete Domestic Guide", ten engraved plates, all out-of-text, lightly foxed. Manuscript recipe for ginger beer laid in. Boards lightly worn, edges lightly rubbed, corners lightly bruised; pages lightly agetoned, mostly to the margins; small chip to top edge 5F3 small loss of text; ownership details in ink to preliminaries and table of contents
¶ Mrs Copley, daughter of a prosperous London silk merchant and first the wife of an Anglican curate and Oxford college chaplain, later of a Baptist minister, was among the most prolific domestic and religious writers of the early nineteenth century. Best remembered for Cottage Comforts (1825), written for the labouring classes, she also published works on household management, knitting, servants' duties, children's education, sacred history, moral fiction, biography, and numerous religious tracts.
First published in 1827, The Cook's Complete Guide is her most ambitious culinary work, comprising approximately 2,800 recipes. Intended for the comfortably established middle-class household rather than the cottager, it assumes the resources of a substantial domestic establishment, with gardens, still room, and well-appointed kitchen. The work is divided into "Plain" and "Compound" cookery, the latter forming the greater part and encompassing the more elaborate dishes. The concluding sections extend beyond cookery to brewing, gardening, small-scale husbandry, domestic medicine, and household receipts. The engraved plates illustrate trussing, carving, and bills of fare. Unlike Cottage Comforts and Cottage Cookery, economy is not a dominant concern; the menus are generous and the recipes comprehensive, arranged in continuous paragraph form with a full index.
Contemporary ownership inscriptions on the front endpapers record the volume's early colonial history. Although partially illegible, they place the book in Melbourne during the Victorian gold rush, in a house erected on the first subdivision of the city's earliest suburb. It was later owned by Mrs William Weatherly of Billilla, Brighton, wife of the prominent Victorian pastoralist.
An extensive and practical late Georgian household manual, considerably less common in commerce than Copley's better-known economical cookery books and deserving greater bibliographical attention.
Scarce. An excellent copy.
§ OCLC records fifteen holdings, fourteen in the USA and UK, one in India.
§ Bitting p.583; Craig 26; Oxford p.162; cf Gernon 147; cf Cagle 633,
¹ Although Bitting dates this work to circa 1810, the preface refers to Meg Dods, who's Cook and Housewife's Manual was not published until 1826, the likely publication date. There are 1827 and 1836 editions of Mrs Copley's book.
Item #11494
Price: $750.00 AUD