"UNIVERSALLY ACKNOWLEDGED TO BE THE BEST COOK BOOK EVER WRITTEN": SCARCE FIRST EDITION OF MRS. BEETON'S HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT, WITH 14 COLOR PLATES

BEETON, Isabella. Mrs. Beeton's Household Management. London: S.O. Beeton, 1861. Very thick octavo, contemporary three-quarter brown calf rebacked. $4500.

Scarce first edition of this landmark of cookery and home economics, richly illustrated with a chromolithographic frontispiece, title page, and 12 plates, each depicting multiple dishes.

First published in 1861, Beeton's Household Management was "an immediate bestseller and went into many editions well into the 20th century" (Craig 8). Its popularity "rested on its quality, especially the combination of clear structure and precise detail. Recipes, for example, were arranged alphabetically in sections, with ingredients, prices, weights, and cooking times all precisely stated, on the basis of tests carried out by the author in her own kitchen. The book's style moved easily between detailed instructions and neat aphorisms… For Isabella Beeton, a people's 'way of taking their meals, as well as their way of treating women' were marks of civilization. Dining well 'implies both the will and the skill to reduce to order, and surround with idealisms and grace, the more material conditions of human existence'. That will and skill she showed in large measure" (DNB). "As the compiler of what is universally acknowledged to be the best cookbook ever written, she will continue to be read as avidly into the 21st century as she has been in the 19th and 20th" (Quayle, 247). First issue, with the Bouverie Street address on the illustrated title page (Cagle 561). Bitting, 32. Craig 8.

Infrequent foxing and staining to text, most notably to frontispiece and title pages; wear to contemporary boards. A very good copy of a classic culinary work.