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; [electrotyped by George Charles, 9 Sansom Street], 1860.
Small octavo (17.5 x 12 cm.), 160 pages. Index. Stated "fourth edition, revised and enlarged". Originally published Philadelphia, 1856 with 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. Some light foxing throughout, otherwise an exceptionally clean copy. In publisher's blind- and gilt-stamped brown textured cloth. Two small, black ink spots to spine, otherwise fine. [OCLC locates seven copies of this printing; Bitting, page 342; Cagle 570-571 (earlier editions); Lowenstein 834].
Price: $500.00