Lot 6•
COOKERY FAIRFAX (ARABELLA) The Family's Best Friend: Or the Whole Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, Fifth Edition, Printed for the Author Only, 1753
Ending from 19 June 2025, 12:00 BST
Online, London, Knightsbridge£600 - £800
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COOKERY
FAIRFAX (ARABELLA) The Family's Best Friend: Or the Whole Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy; In a Method Intirely New and Suited to Every Capacity... Calculated for the Preservation of Health, and Upon the Principles of Frugality... Fifth Edition, light spotting, short ragged tear to pp.97/8 with small loss to one letter, contemporary calf-backed boards, worn, covers detached [Maclean, pp.47-8; Oxford, p.85], 8vo, Printed for the Author Only, 1753
Footnotes
SCARCE COMPLETE COPY. Only two copies traced at auction (Arthur Shircliffe sale, Parke-Bernet, 1954, and incomplete copy in 2025). This is the earliest edition of the work recorded by the bibliographers, Maclean suggesting that it is "either a slightly earlier edition of a book by Penelope Bradshaw using a pseudonym, or, more likely, a pirated version of it". The preface is printed in a font of "remarkable character" so as to "prevent unfair Traders from reprinting, or in any wise defrauding the author..." (Preface).
Provenance: Mrs. (?)Gardement, ink name at foot of final page, and ink note "Grandmother came to live with us" inside upper cover.