The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy; Which far exceeds and Thing of the Kind yet published.

BY A LADY. [GLASSE, Hannah].

$1,150.00

Item Number: 129811

London: Printed for A. Millar, J. and R. Tonson, W. Strahan, et al., 1765.

Early printing of the best-selling recipe book of the eighteenth century. Octavo, bound in three quarter crushed morocco with gilt titles and tooling to the spine. From the library of William Safire with his bookplate to the pastedown. William Safire was an important American author, columnist, journalist, and presidential speechwriter. He joined Nixon’s campaign for the 1960 Presidential race, and again in 1968. After Nixon’s 1968 victory, Safire served as a speechwriter for him and Spiro Agnew. He authored several political columns in addition to his weekly column “On Language” in The New York Times Magazine from 1979 until the month of his death and authored two books on grammar and linguistics: The New Language of Politics (1968) and what Zimmer called Safire’s “magnum opus,” Safire’s Political Dictionary. Safire later served as a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board from 1995 to 2004 and in 2006 was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. Title page, preface and table of contents supplied in facsimile. With a recipe in Safire’s mother’s handwriting on his Safire Public Relations, Inc. letterhead and an autograph note from his Aunt Pearl laid in and two typed letters on Library of Congress letterhead tipped in at rear addressed to Safire attempting to help him identify the edition of the present volume as it is lacking the first several leaves. In very good condition. A unique example with noted provenance.

First published in 1747, Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy was a bestseller for a century after its first publication, dominating the English-speaking market and making Glasse one of the most famous cookbook authors of her time. The book ran through at least 40 editions, many of which were copied without explicit author consent. It was published in Dublin from 1748, and in America from 1805. The 1751 edition was the first book to mention trifle with jelly as an ingredient; the 1758 edition gave the first mention of "Hamburgh sausages" and piccalilli, while the 1774 edition of the book included one of the first recipes in English for an Indian-style curry. The book was popular in the Thirteen Colonies of America, and its appeal survived the American War of Independence, with copies being owned by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.