First edition of a recipe book for an audience concerned with economical and healthy cooking. The preface states that Shackleford’s work is ‘the result of long experience, and in its composition the author has always had oeconomy and prudence, as well as health and pleasure in her eye; for we find particular regard is everywhere paid to those dishes which are cheap and profitable, as well as wholesome and pleasant’. A fascinating article by Professor Simon Werrett, ‘Food, Thrift, and Experiment in Early Modern England’ (2020), compares Isaac Newton’s experiments on light using glass prisms with Shackleford’s recipes for fruitcakes as described in the present work. Both, says Werrett, are ‘“experiments” which “made use” of things ready to hand in the service of good “oeconomy” or household management.’ Shackleford appears to have been the sister-in-law of the book’s publisher Newbery. Bitting p.430: ‘rare’.

12mo (165 x 101mm). (A few faints spots, title lightly browned in margins, some splits in gutter in final quire). Modern calf (faintly rubbed). Provenance: Albert Roux (bookplate on front pastedown).