Full title: An Encyclopaedia of Domestic Economy, Comprising Such Subjects as are Most Immediately Connected with Housekeeping; as, the Construction of Domestic Edifices, with the Modes of Warming, Ventilating, and Lighting Them; A Description of the Various Articles of Furniture, with the Nature of Their Materials; Duties of Servants; A General Account of the Animal and Vegetable Substances Used in Food, and the Methods of Preserving and Preparing Them by Cooking; Making Bread; The Chemical Nature and the Preparation of All Kinds of Fermented Liquors Used as Beverage; Materials Employed in Dress and The Toilette; Business of Laundry; Description of the Various Wheel-Carriages; Preservation of Health; Domestic Medicine, etc, etc. First edition, first printing. xix, 1264pp plus 32pp of publisher’s adverts at rear. Illustrated with nearly 1000 woodcuts. In its original binding of blind embossed buckram-type cloth, with gilt titles on spine (Boards generally a little worn, lightly rubbed at edges, bruised and rounded on corners and spine ends, a few mild marks. Endpapers soiled and strained in gutters, some darkening to softened and rounded text block edges, with a hint of marginal tanning internally). The front free endpaper bears a previous owner’s name, and the stamp (twice) of Nathanial Buckley, the 19th century mill owner, millionaire and Member of Parliament for Stalybridge, heavily criticised for his treatment of his workers and tenants in Ireland. Casing now protected in a loose fitting, stiff Perspex sleeve. Thomas Webster (1772-1844), a Scottish architect and geologist by training (the Royal Institution on Albemarle Street being built from his designs) was one of the first paid scientific professors, being Professor of Geology at University College, London. He spent the last ten years of his life on a commission from publishers Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans compiling his enormous dictionary of domestic economy, with the assistance of one Mrs William Parkes, which was published in the year of his death. It is now widely accepted that Mrs Isabella Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1859) leaned heavily on the work of others – her main source was Webster’s Encyclopaedia, particularly on the arrangement of the kitchen and general observations, making Webster’s work one of the most influential works on household management of the 19th century. . 8vo.
