Kitchen Essays, with recipes and their occasions, by Lady Jekyll. Reprinted from The Times.

London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, Ltd., [1921-22].

Octavo (19 x 14 cm.), 263 pages. Illustrated. FIRST EDITION, "dated Midsummer to Easter 1921-22" (from the preface). The essays presented here were gathered from the unsigned works published in The Times, and printed here, we're told in the preface, in response to reader requests. Agnes Jekyll, patron of the Pre-Raphaelites, and sister-in-law of the iconic gardener Gertrude Jekyll. The biographer of the later wrote that Gertude "was an artist-gardener, then Agnes was an artist-housekeeper." In the preface, Jekyll writes, "it is often found that a good tradition..., painstakingly acquired, has vanished beyond recovery, and that the pleasant things we enjoyed in youth, the familiar foods which added to our travels abroad, or the spécialité of some clever lost cook, have all be irrevocably down Time's rolling stream" (page viii). Sections include: Old friends with new faces, "Le mot juste" in food, In the cooks absence, Children's bread, Thoughts of Venice from home, A winter shooting-party luncheon, Luncheon for a motor excursion in winter, Cottage hospitality, Tray food, Food for artists and speakers, For the too thin, For the too fat, and Food for the punctual and the unpunctual, amongs others. Some light foxing to edges of text block. Small chip to free front endpaper. In publisher's white cloth, titled and decorated in blue. The front panel of the scarce dust jacket is laid-in, but it is all that remains of the jacket. Near very good, and scarce thus. [OCLC locates twenty-nine copies; Bitting, page 245].

Price: $200.00