The Housekeeper's Instructor, or, Universal family cook :being a full and clear display of the art of cookery in all its branches ... to which is added, the complete art of carving ... The Seventeenth Edition. Corrected, revised, and considerably improved, by every modern addition and variation in the Art, by Jacob Christopher Schnebbelie.

London: Printed for Thomas Kelly, 17, Paternoster-Row, [1823].

Octavo (21.5 x 14 cm.), 464 pages. Index. Lacking the frontispiece portrait of Schnebbelie. Engraved title featuring a cornucopic table. Illustrated with eleven plates, mostly carving instructions and menus. Stated seventeenth edition. While Andre Simon claimed this was "probably the most popular cookery book in England during the last decade of the eighteenth century" (BG, page 81), Maclean pushes back on this concept, "... this is a bold assertion, and the present compiler has no evidence to justify it." (Maclean, page 69). Jacob Schnebbelie first revised and expanded The Houekeeper's Instructor in 1804. A number of institutions date this printing as 1811 while others assign 1823, and we've found no supporting evidence for either. Culinary bookseller Marian L. Gore, whose bookseller ticket and pricing code are present in this volume estimated 1811. Laid-in is a copy of Gore's invoice for this book and other works to cookery collector Walter Fillin. Some light soiling throughout; but generally clean and sound. Original tree calf-covered boards with corners bumped, scuffing and abrasions, rebacked with modern calf spine, with gilt-titled black spine label. Lacking frontispiece portrait as noted above; bookseller ticket of Gore to preliminary blank; bookplate of collectors Walter & Lucille Fillin; invoice of sale laid-in. Good or better. [Cagle 742; Maclean, page 69; Oxford, page 133 (all earlier printings); Simon BG 832, 833 (earlier printings); Vicaire, col. 441].

Price: $350.00