Copies of the first (1710) and third (1726) editions of Patrick Lamb's celebrated Royal Cookery... - the first in a modern quarter vellum binding, the later edition in period full panelled calf but showing some worming to the spine ends - sold at £1550 and £940 to an active but anonymous bidder known hereafter as 'S'. A 1723 first of Robert Smith's Court Cookery..., a bit spotted and browned throughout in a recent antique-style binding of blind-panelled calf, went to Cooking the Books at £1000. Smith was not kind to his mentor, Lamb, in the dedication to his own book, but showed that he lacked nothing in self-esteem.
The contemporary sheep binding was broken but a 1762 first edition of Catherine Brooks' Complete English Cook; or, Prudent Housewife in the Simon Hall collection was billed as the only recorded copy and it sold at £1950 to someone with same surname.
The engraved frontispiece to the Brooks book is seen above right, while seen right is the frontispiece of The Complete Art of Cookery... by a Mrs Jewson of Bishopsgate Street. In rubbed and later cloth, it lacked one page, but this work of c.1790 does not appear in the principal references and the Hall copy sold at £1550.
A 1795 first of Sara Martin's New Experienced English Housekeeper..., untrimmed in recent but antique-style calf, sold at £1000 to Ximenes, as did The British Jewel, or Complete Housewife's Best Companion, published by J. Miller in 1776 with 10 woodcuts showing methods of trussing fowl. In recent calf-backed boards, it reached £840.
Copies of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in the collection included a set of the original sixpenny monthly parts that reached £1000. This was not the original edition of 1859-61 but a slightly revised version issued by her husband in 1869, after her early death.
Cookery and housekeeping books from other sources included a 1675, second edition of Hannah Wolley's The Gentlewoman's Companion; or, a Guide to the Female Sex, which is concerned principally with proper behaviour but also includes 'A Guide for Cook-maids, Dairy-maids, Chamber-maids and others that go into service'. In scuffed contemporary sheep, it sold at £2800 to Buyer S.
A 1787, second edition of Josiah Twamley's Dairying exemplified, or the Business of Cheese-Making... bound in rebacked period sheep with a 1792, third edition of George Boswell's Treatise on Watering Meadows..., was signed to the front free endpaper by Joseph Priestley, which doubtless helped the price to £1140 (Buyer S).
