The Joy of Cooking. A compilation of reliable recipes with a casual culinary chat

Indianapolis/New York: Bobbs-Merrill Company, Publishers, 1941. Thick octavo (24 x 16.5 cm.), [10], 1-628 pages. Illustrated with silhouettes by the author's daughter, Marion Rombauer Becker; detailed Table of Contents and detailed Index. Second edition, stated sixth printing. The sixth printing of the first trade publication of the The Joy of Cooking, issued by Bobbs Merrill in 1936, following the original, privately published by the author and printed by Clayton of St. Louis in 1931. As described by Anne Mendelson in her masterful biography of Rombauer, Stand Facing the Stove (New York, 1996, pp. 170-172), with each successive printing of Joy, incremental changes were made and the book progressed toward becoming a national bestseller and a standard household reference. Simultaneously, Rombauer's relationship with Bobbs Merrill deteriorated. This new copyright registration in 1941 indicates not a new edition, but rather another incremental step more properly called a new printing, and an effort on behalf of the publisher to reassert itself in preparation for a major investment in a later, expanded edition and larger marketing campaign. The Joy of Cooking rose to the position it holds today, that of the most popular and best-selling cookbook in American history, with nearly eighteen million copies sold to-date. It is the only cookbook to be included in the New York Public Library's list of 150 Influential Books of the Century. Some very light soil to edges of text block; darkening to front and rear paste downs. In bright and clean yellow pattered cloth with title in brown and yellow to spine and to front board. In the scarce dust jacket, price clipped; edge wear and small chips not affecting text. Near fine in a near very good dust jacket. [OCLC locates just five copies of this 1941 printing; Bitting, page 403; Cagle 653 (both indicating the 1931 edition only)].