OP: The Cook's Oracle

Evert Duyckinck, George Long, E. Bliss & E. White, New York, 1825. Hardcover. Good.

William Kitchener (1778–1827) was born into a wealthy family, which allowed him the leisure of comfortable unemployment. He was well known around London for his dinner parties, for which he apparently did all the cooking and cleaning himself. In 1817 he published a bestselling cookbook, Apicius Redivivus, or the Cook's Oracle. 

Kitchener’s instructions are thorough and didactic, oriented toward the home cook. He employs extensive footnotes, some even taking up the majority of a page, as a means of cramming as much information as possible into every subject. Clearly an author bursting with enthusiasm for sharing all his knowledge of cooking methods and culinary trivia. The success of The Cook’s Oracle is a strong endorsement for its usefulness.

Ours is an early American printing (1825) from the fifth London edition. Fine quarter leather bound case with morocco label to spine. The book block is extensively foxed with one small tape repair. This copy was acquired from famed music journalist June Barsalona (née Harris) who, in turn, acquired it from her friends and antiquarian book dealers Betsy and Timothy Trace.