The Housekeeper’s Instructor; Or, Universal Family-Cook: Being a Full and Clear Display in all its Branches… To Which is Added, The Complete Art of Carving.

HENDERSON, W. A. [William Safire].

$850.00

Item Number: 123841

London: Printed for Thomas Kelly, [1823].

Early printing of Henderson’s bestselling English cookery book. Octavo, bound in three quarter contemporary calf with gilt titles and tooling to the spine, illustrated with engravings, lacking the frontispiece, one plate and with loss to another plate. Corrected and revised by Jacob Christopher Schnebbelie. From the library of William Safire, although not marked. 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. In good condition.

William Augustus Henderson's bestselling English cookbook, The Housekeeper's Instructor first appeared in 1791. Written in eighteenth-century style brief, the recipes offer little guidance on the techniques to be applied, ingredients, indication of quantities, cooking temperature or cooking time. There are no woodcuts integrated with the text, nor any illustrations of utensils or made dishes. Illustrations are provided only towards the end of the book: firstly for the Carving chapter, which has seven whole-page copperplate engravings showing somewhat diagrammatically with labels and dotted lines how fowls, game, meat and fish are to be carved; and secondly in the "Suppers" appendix, which has two whole-page and two fold-out engravings illustrating the layout of dishes for first and second courses.