American Cookery Books 1742-1860

Am e rican C o o ke ry B o o ks 1 74 2 - 1 86 0 ’ By PVulu o L i ncoln R E V I S E D A N D E N L A R G E D B Y Eleanor L owenstein A merican A ntiqu arian Society,Worcester,Mussueh usetts Corner Book Shop,1 0 2 Fo urth A venue,New York P ublish ed 1 954 P R I N T E D I N T H E UN I TE D S TATE S O F A M E R I C A A C K N O W L E DG M E N T S My sincere tha nks are ofiered to th e A meri ca n A ntiquaria n tt t or Both Society for per mi i ng a nd encouraging me o d o this w k . th e S ociety a nd th e New Yor k P ublic L ibrary kindly allowed th e s c li ie c Worm u e o th e r a i t s Ri h ard S . ser aue h el ul s u es f i f . g pf gg tions and contributed ma ny new titles ; oth er additi onal titles were listed by th e Library of Congress ( b oth Bitting and P ennell col lections ) ,Dayton P u blic Library,Kansas State College,[ ames Mr h om s L cru ourle n . S s . G y,a d s T a . gg Finally,a nd most parti cularly,1 want to th a nk Walter Gold water,with ou t wh ose consta nt ad vi ce a nd unselfis h assista nce th e wor would never h a been com e d k ve pl te . P R E F A C E T O T H E R E V I S E D E DI T I O N The first edition of this bibliography very quickly went out of print,and the American Antiquarian Society was besieged with fo o fo of o requests r c pies r years . In spite this pressure,the edit rs ’ of the S ociety s publication had to put off the question of a second edition from year to year because of the pressure of previous publishing commitments and the fact that the time could not be spared to visit other libraries to bring up to date the record of o m o their holdings . The pr ble was s lved when Miss Eleanor Lowenstein stepped into the breach,undertook the task of revi o o o f si n,and sh uldered the resp nsibility o this edition . I R I T C L F F O D K . S H P O N L ibraria n,A merica n A ntiq ua ria n S ociety A M E R I C A N C O O KE R Y B O O K S 1 742 — 1 860 I NT R O DU C T I O N T O T H E F I R S T E DI T I O N H E literature of American cookery has received little attention o from libraries,collectors and book dealers . M st libraries have some books on cookery but very few possess an important num o i o not o m o ber . Private c llect ns are well kn wn and as a rule re attention has been given,in them,to foreign publicati ons th an to on oo oo o American . Occasi ally c kery b ks appear at aucti n sales but ’ o m o are seldom listed in dealers catalogues . C nsidering the i p r tance that cooking has had in human life from the earliest pre historic ages and that the subj ect has always been of universal interest,it seems strange that so little attention has been paid to its literature,especially since no subj ect seems to have created a greater number of best sellers . In collecting American books on cookery one is at once struck with their almost entire ab sence during the first one hundred o o and fifty years of the colonial period . Even f reign publicati ns are seldom found in the remnants of colonial libraries . Perhaps th e explanation is that th ey received such hard usage and were so damaged that,having no intrinsic literary value, they were one o m o m seldom preserved . Yet when c nsiders the nu er us al a nacs,j uveniles and other early imprints of little literary merit which have come down to us in tatters and fragments defying identi fication,one is forced to the conclusion that few if any books on cookery were imp orted and that American housewives m m relied on anuscript recipes and on memory . The earliest A eri can imprint on cookery known,a reprint of an English work,is dated 1742 and no work by an American author has been found of earlier date than 1796. No complete bibliography of English and other foreign cookery books has been made but private collections of them exist both t of oo o in Europe and America . The earliest lis English b ks n ted is in th e introduction to the third American edition of Dr . ’ “ ’ Ki tchiner s Cook s Oracle, dated 1825,which names 201 pub “ 2 z licati ons dating from 1518 to 18 0. W . Carew Ha litt in his Old ” Cookery B ooks and Ancient Cui sine, London,1902,lists or describes seventy-eight cookery books published in England pre 4 A merican Cookery Books on to 1800 and af o . t vi s twenty ter that date Mrs . Elizabe h R bins “ ” Pennell in My Cookery B ooks, Boston,1903,tells in an inter esting way of her own collection of foreign cookery books,and follows with a bibliography which describes one hundred and seventeen titles,including six Latin,twelve Italian,twenty—one French,four Spanish and seventy-four English imprints, all s o publi hed bef re the nineteenth century and owned by herself . She prefaces this with the statement that she does not aim at an “ exhaustive bibliography but attempts nothing more ambitious ” of m w oo n m than a list y o n b ks a d even that within li its . It is a valuable compilation as far as it goes,but it is to be regretted that the accomplished authoress did not attempt to make it more * om o c plete,especially as to the English publicati ns . The bibliography and check list of American Cookery B ooks here presented is the result of an attempt,begun several years ago,to make a comprehensive collection of all the British and m m n of om A erican i prints o the subj ect . In the absence any c plete bibliography it was impossible to foresee h ow large an under taking this would prove to be,but it was not long before it became evident that th e United States alone furnished a sufii ciently large field for such a collection,and the fact that the American Antiquarian Society,to which it was the ultimate intention to present the collection,limited its library to Ameri cana,also made a limitation to American imprints desirable . The time limit of the collection to the year 1900,first adopted,was later extended to 1914,th e beginning of the World War,when th e publication of cookery books increased exceedingly . Wars seem to have a stimulating effect on this class of literature as well m m ff as on others . The A erican Civil War had a si ilar e ect,but unfortunately at that time,substitution of wood pulp for rags in the manufacture of paper caused a great deterioration in the quality of the paper used in books intended for popular consump oo o o tion . C kery b oks increased in number but decreased in bibli graphical value in the matter of printing,paper and binding. This and other considerations led to the selecti on of 1860 as the m m o ti e li it for this bibli graphy . In a search for titles the important libraries in the east have been visited,and their possession of the several imprints is noted f under their initials,o which a list is appended . A few private “1 ’ This was written before th e publica tion of Bitting s Gas tronomic Bibli ” ’ “ ” ograph y Oxford s English Cookery Books to th e Year 1 850 ’ “ ” and Vica ire s Bibliographie G astronomiq ue ought also to be mentioned . E . L . Introd uctio n to th e First Editio n 5 collectors have also furnished titles but these are all classed under ’ own col the letter P,meaning private collectio ns . The writer s lection is credited to the American Antiquarian S ociety,to which it is transferred with the publication of this bibliography,and th e copies belonging to it are indicated by an asterisk attached to om o o o 292 the initials of the S ociety . The c bined c llecti n c ntains of the 490 titles The next leading collection contains but - eighty seven . It is hoped that th e publication of this bibliography will lead to th e discovery of many titles not now included because no o copies have been found . It is felt,h wever,that the field has been well covered .

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