Cole's Popular Cookery

Payne, A G (ed). Cole's Popular Cookery. E W Cole, Book Arcade: Melbourne, Australia [ca.1889] 8vo (190x125mm) HC dec red cloth bds, gilt lettered [4],iv,[2],360,[10 adverts]pp.

 PAYNE, A G [Arthur Gay (1840 - 1894)] (ed)

Cole's Popular Cookery

Melbourne : E W Cole Book Arcade, [1889].  Printed by Cassell & Co, Limited, La Belle Sauvage, London

Octavo (190x125mm)  red cloth, black decorated with plates, bowls and a jug, and gilt lettered, boards, ii-v,[1],iv,[2],360,[10 publisher's catalogue - Cassell & Co]pp. Four colour plates, including the frontispiece.

Light offset/age-toning to front and rear end-papers. Spine faintly sunned, some faint flecking to the boards; a small blemish and folded corner (not affecting the text) to p.315 (plum cake recipe). Else an uncommonly fine copy with no other signs of use.

Although undated, the publisher's advertising is marked 8/89 and the printer's mark on p.360 "200/789" suggest a date of about July/August 1889. The verso running title throughout is "Cassell's Popular Cookery"

From the preface:

"The present work has been written on the basis of the maxim that economy and simplicity are not incompatible with excellence and elegance. We have also, in compiling it, borne in mind that there is an increasingly large class of persons who, without being vegetarians, consume a greater amount of vegetable and farinaceous food than was customary years back."

Notwithstanding this, the recipes contain the usual assortment of meats, game, birds, force-meats, offal, pies etc. that are usually to be found in Victorian cookbooks and the colour plates are devoid of vegetables except for one salad.

A solid reference of British cooking in the late 19th century; 'Popular Cookery' was sold in various forms throughout the British Empire both by Cassells and under various licences including, in Australia, by the somewhat eccentric, yet madly successful, Melbourne bookseller 'extraordinaire' E W Cole.

Although generally held to be the work of A G Payne (a staff writer and editor for Cassells) the Library of Congress identifies A G Payne as a pseudonym of Sarah Sharp Hamer; perhaps as both Payne and Hamer are acknowledged as having used 'Phillis Browne' and 'Phyllis Browne' as pseudonyms associated with other Cassell & Company cookery titles.

An elegant near fine late Victorian reference.

§  OCLC records only 3 holdings for this edition, all in Australia and only 3 holdings for the equivalent edition of Cassell's Popular Cookery.
§ Hoyle 1025; cf Driver 805.2 and Driver Culinary Landmarks p.461.