[Gastronomy] Food In England

London: Macdonald [from 1954], 1956. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine-/Near Fine+. Second Impression of this definitive history of English cuisine, a "treasury of information on the gathering, storing, and cooking of food from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries. . . . as full of magic and potions as any medieval herbal." (ODNB ) Thick demy 8vo (227 x 150mm): xii, 13-676pp, with 21 plates from photographs on glossy stock and numerous finely executed line drawings, "exact, decorative yet diagrammatic." (ODNB) Publisher's orange cloth, spine lettered and decorated in gold; illustrated dust jacket by Hookaway Cowles, priced 30/- net. Text block edges lightly freckled, very occasionally affecting margins, but an excellent example, tightly bound and clean throughout in a handsome briefly nicked jacket. According to historian Lucy Worsley, Food in England is a "curious mixture of cookery, history, anthropology, folklore and even magic . . . It ranges from Saxon cooking to the Industrial Revolution, with chapters on everything from seaweed to salt." (The Guardian, 11/2/2012) During the 1930s, "Hartley toured the British Isles by bicycle and car, with pen, pencil, and camera, writing weekly articles for the Daily Sketch on country people and their trades. Her articles covered such themes as horse-ploughing, bread making, and clog making. They used the calendar months as their basis, and were strongly influenced by the sixteenth-century agricultural writer and poet Thomas Tusser. . . . The material gleaned on these travels went into her many other books and articles, which eventually covered many aspects and periods of English rural life." N. B. With few exceptions (always identified), we only stock books in exceptional condition, with dust jackets carefully preserved in archival, removable mylar sleeves. All orders are packaged with care and posted promptly. Satisfaction guaranteed. (Fine Editions Ltd is a member of the Independent Online Booksellers Association, and we subscribe to its codes of ethics.).