Provenance:  Flourishing old signatures of “J. Lowry” to pastedown and title-page.

It is notable that despite its light theme and touch, this book offers serious instruction to men wanting seriously to achieve real competence in its era's arts of entertaining. Those seeking a gamesmanship guide suggesting ways merely to appear competent, or those cheerfully assuming that it is charming for men to be incompetent in this realm, had best look for support elsewhere.

•  Brown, Culinary Americana, 3337 (for first ed.).   Publisher's black cloth, front cover with eggplant- and gilt-stamped vignette of a mustachioed man hoisting a drink tray, spine with eggplant-stamped stripes and gilt-stamped title; dust jacket lacking, minor shelfwear to extremities and lower edges. A clean, solid copy.  (30269)

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for an enlargement.

Uncommon: ESTC locates only four copies, none of which are in the U.S.

•  ESTC T26238; Goldsmiths’-Kress 7877.5. Recent marbled paper–covered boards, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Pages age-toned, with some dustsoiling.

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•  American Imprints 40-2804; NSTC 2G23438. This ed. not in Amerine & Borg; see entry 1599 for later, 1848 ed.   Publisher's brown cloth, covers blind-stamped, spine with decorative gilt-stamped title; showing only light shelf wear. Ex–social club library: paper shelving label on spine, 19th-century bookplate and presentation plate (bequest of George Fox), call numbers on endpapers, title-page and one other rubber-stamped, no other markings. Pages lightly cockled but clean.  (28182)

•  Publisher's plain olive brown cloth, spine with printed paper label; without dust jacket as issued. Crisp and clean.  (29708)

Five Thousand Receipts was first printed in America in 1826, and enjoyed as enthusiastic a reception in the United States as it previously had in England. This is the fourth American edition, here in the Kay variant giving “122 Chestnut Street – near 4th” as the publisher's address.

Provenance: Francis Kelsey, New York City.

•  Bitting 299; Lowenstein 122; Shoemaker 39366.   Contemporary sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped decorations; worn and abraded, joints open and fragile, front cover darkened, leather lost at spine extremities. Front free endpaper with early inked ownership inscription; front fly-leaf with small hole and pencilled annotations. Pages with varying degrees of age-toning and spotting, several signatures deeply browned. Some corners dog-eared. One leaf with upper outer corner torn away, with loss of a few words; one leaf with tear from lower margin extending into text without loss; one leaf with internal closed tear, without loss. Used, as this usually was!  (27405)

132 well-filled pages

 The interest in wines is substantial here.

Near the end of the book is a full-page drawing of an apparatus labeled “percolater,” which looks suspiciously like a still, followed by three pages of notes on French measures. This last set of memoranda may suggest that Mayer did not grow up with those measures, and that he might have been English is suggested by the fact that English words appear sprinkled throughout while four leaves are written entirely in that language.

A ten-centimes ticket to the Tuileries and an advertisement for a means of reproducing engravings are laid in among the pages.

•  Original quarter sheep over blue marbled boards, with paper label on front cover; spine and board edges worn, hinges (inside) open. Previous owner's inscription and pressure-stamp on endpaper. All text is written in a clear but not entirely consistent hand, the English-language recipes and two others in bright blue (as opposed to the book's “regular” brown) ink.  (2551)

The detail here is now interestingly “period,” and the “type” is eternal.

•  Publisher's light blue paper–covered boards, spine with silver-stamped title, in original dust jacket; volume with spine gently faded, jacket with a few tiny scuffs and spine and inner panels slightly darkened. Internally very crisp and clean.  (30125)

The instructions include formulations for wines and beers.

•  Not in Bitting, not in Cagle.   Publisher's moiré plum-colored cloth, front cover with gilt-stamped title; spine and edges worn with hinges (inside) starting. Pages age-toned with occasional smudges; some corners dog-eared and one leaf with ragged edges. Recipe index with several instances of “cider” lined through in pencil and rubber-stamped “ciderette” instead. Lots and lots and lots of information and, in the format, some sense of how it was worked with.  (28522)

A contemporaneous certified copy of the original document.

•  Written in a clear notarial hand. Very good condition.

Provenance:  Private bookplate on pastedowns and ownership stamp of John Carter Brown on first leaf of preliminaries and elsewhere. On his death to his son John Nicholas Brown (1861–1900). On his death deeded to the John Carter Brown Library. Deaccessioned 2008.

•  Howes S200; Library Company, Afro-Americana, 9182; Sabin 77989.   19th-century half brown morocco and marbled paper–covered boards, spines with gilt-stamped titles and bands; moderately rubbed. Front pastedowns each with private bookplate of John Carter Brown as above, subsequently rubber-stamped by the library bearing his name (properly deaccessioned), title-pages each with faded early inked inscription (dated 1752 and 1753), sectional title-page of vol. I and first text page of vol. II each with Brown's red signature rubber-stamp. Lacking four maps and 58 plates. Scattered faint foxing and spotting, vol. II with lower portions of front endpapers and first few leaves waterstained, pages overall generally clean. Priced to reflect plate absences — but this is a worthwhile text, complete, solidly bound, and with an interesting association.  (29149)

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Original edition, not a modern reprint.

•  Publisher's oxblood cloth, covers decoratively stamped in black, spine black- and gilt-stamped; corners and spine extremities rubbed, sides with small areas of minor discoloration, spine sunned with paper shelving label at head, a little cocked. Ex–social club library: call number on endpapers, rubber-stamp on title-page and four others. Final blank leaf excised. Clean, sound for use.  (27367)

There is also some Americana interest when the author discusses in several places the drinking of chocolate.

•  Bitting 117 (second ed.); Cagle 1132 (first ed. of Davini only); Hünersdorff, Coffee, I, 395; Osler, Biblotheca Osleriana, 2428 (first ed.); Vicaire 250 (second ed.); Alden & Landis, European Americana, 727/231.  Contemporary vellum, darkened, with a few pinholes of insect damage and some minor spots of staining. Title-page with inked ownership inscription in Latin, dated 1728. Pages a bit cockled, with edges darkened; most mildly to moderately foxed.