Katharine Mellish’s Cookery and Domestic Management, Including Economic and Middle Class Practical Cookery

[1901] First edition, first printing. xii, 988pp, with fifty-six coloured plates and 441 illustrations in text. All colour plates present. Quarter-bound in green leather over green cloth-covered boards with gilt title on spine. Tall 8vo. Boards heavily worn all over, heavily rubbed – right through to base material – on corners and around a faded and scuffed spine, some mild marks on cloth which is patchily faded. Endpapers marked and spotted, with remnants of vernacular cover on both pastedowns. Front hinge cracked resulting in some loosening of first signature. Heavy spotting on text block edges and first and last few leaves, with some faint and occasional spotting throughout. Page 37 has a tear repaired with old sticky tape in the lower corner; pp38-39 have some scattered small ink marks; pp970 onwards have occasional short tears some of which have been repaired with old sticky tape, one page edge clumsily reinforced and a few assorted flat creases. Volume remains tight and robust even if it is not pretty. Katharine Mellish’s classic work on domestic management, firmly aimed at the growing lower middle class housewife, puts a firmer emphasis on practicality than most volumes of its time, and rejects the ‘aspirant’ nature of the likes of Mrs Beeton. Packed full of traditional recipes with easy to follow instructions and numerous photographs. These volumes are now hard to find either in its first edition or with all the colour plates present. (The work was republished later the same year by the Standard Art Book company in two volumes).