The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy. By a Lady.
London: Printed for the Author; and sold at Mrs. Ashburn's ..., 1747.

Biographical details of Mrs. Glasse's life are scarce despite the facts that there were many editions of The Art of Cookery published in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and that another book written by her, The Compleat Confectioner, was also a best-seller. Even her authorship was questioned, based on a remark in Boswell's Life of Johnson, which suggested that the real author was Dr. John Hill. She was apparently a 'habit-maker to Her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales', according to an advertisement found in the fourth edition of The Art of Cookery. In the subscription list of some two hundred names in this first edition there appear 'Mrs. Glasse, Cary-Street' and 'Mr. Glasse, Attorney at Law', but how or if they are related to her is not known. The relatively small number of copies printed and the fact that the book was used in the kitchen has resulted in its rarity today.

The Art of Cookery was deservedly popular, for Mrs. Glasse did indeed describe her dishes in a 'plain and easy' manner. She was careful to explain that her cooking was English, not French: 'I have heard of a Cook that used six Pounds of Butter to fry twelve Eggs; when every body knows, that understands Cooking, that Half a Pound is full enough, or more than need be used: But then it would not be French.' She describes the roasting, baking and boiling of meat in the conventional, and to modern eyes, complex manner of the time. Her advice regarding vegetables, however, is much more in keeping with our al dente tastes: 'Directions concerning Garden Things. Most people spoil Garden Things by over boiling them: All things that are green should have a little Crispness, for if they are over boil'd they neither have any Sweetness or Beauty.' Unfortunately, many of Mrs. Glasse's descendants seem to have ignored or forgotten this advice.

The copy of The Art of Cookery recently acquired by the Fisher Library is unique. Later editions appeared in an octavo format, but this one is a handsome folio. It has been interleaved with blank sheets of paper to which are affixed dozens of recipes in manuscript, all of them older than the book and some of which appear to be from the late seventeenth century. They complement and supplement Mrs. Glasse's recipes and some are quite specific, like 'Mrs. Wrights Rich Cordill Watter'.

The provenance of this volume is puzzling and tentative. It was owned in the nineteenth century by someone with the initials 'HWL', who has added to a fly-leaf a note about the book's scarcity and the manuscript additions. The unidentified owner has also enclosed a copy of an article about The Art of Cookery, written by the Reverend Richard Hooper of Upton Rectory, Didcot, and published in The Globe newspaper on February 12th, 1876. A possible candidate is Henry Walton Lawrence, whose library was sold on December 15th, 1892, but the identification must remain tentative.

Mrs. Glasse ends her book with two recipes for curing the bite of a mad dog. One recipe is by Dr. Mead and involves dosages of liverwort and black pepper, combined with copious bleeding.

This volume is a welcome addition to our History of Science Collection, and will be of scholarly service to a wide variety of researchers in several different fields.

Richard Landon
Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library