What I Know; or the Economical Cook and House-Book, Hints on the Daily Duties of a Housekeeper. Comprising nearly five hundred receipts for cooking, preserving, pickling, washing, ironing, gardening, plain and fancy needle-work, putting up of winter stores, and numerous other receipts, useful and needful in every well-regulated household. Fourth edition, revised and enlarged.
Philadelphia: J.W. Bradley, 48 N. Fourth Street, 1860.
Small octavo, 160 pages. Index. Stated "fourth edition, revised and enlarged". Originally published Philadelphia, 1856 under the title What I Know, or Hints on the Daily Duties of a Housekeeper. One of a number of Quaker cookbooks to appear in the 1850s. The first section "The Economical Cook Book" (roughly two thirds of the content), contains recipes in narrative form. The latter section is a household guide, and contains recipes, hints, and instructions. Nicholson offers an early recommendation for cooking with gas (even endorsing a particular brand), and highlights other recently patented consumer products that aid the work of a housekeeper: an apple parer and a clothes-drying machine, for examples. Instruction provided in Grecian painting, lamp shades, knitting, making a city garden, and more. Pages moderately soiled and stained throughout; ink and pencil notes and small corrections throughout, including a nice manicule to the Weights and Measures instruction on page 49. A few small archival tape repairs. Rebound in full black cloth, with original blind-stamped brown cloth laid down over boards. New, red morocco spine label. Good or better. Previous owner inscriptions in ink, "Sarah E. Dunn" and "Philip Dunn, Philadelphia" to preliminary blank. [OCLC locates seven copies of this printing; Bitting, page 342; Cagle 570-571 (earlier editions); Lowenstein 834].
Price: $250.00