Murrel's Two Books of Cookery, containing the best fashions of dressing of flesh, fish or fowle, and curious receipts for making gellies or made-dishes of any fashion. Also,... the Eighth Edition Enlarged

London: Printed by D. Maxwell, and are to be sold by Robert Horn at the Turk's Head in Cornhill [illegible], 1659. Small octavo (12 x 7 cm.), [2], 155 [10], 2-31, [1] pages. A2, B8, C-I12, K3 (-K4, and ?K5) of "table for preserving, conserving, candying and perfuming, &c."). Stated eighth edition enlarged. The final edition of Murrell's 'two books' consisting of The First Book of Cookery, The Second Book of Cookery, and A New Book of Sewing and Carving, the second book with a separate title page. The New Book... was cribbed from The Boke of Kervynge (London 1508) [see Oxford, pages 1ff.]. One of Murrell's major contributions to English culinary literature was to bring French recipes to England some forty years before the competition. This and the previous edition (1650) are the only editions of Murrell that are contemporary with the other leading English cookery texts of the 1650s: The French Cook of La Varenne (1653 and 1654) and Marnette's translation of Le Patissier François (The Perfect Cook of 1656). As to the contents and tone of the work I'll let the title page of the second book speak for the whole. "[W]herein is set forth the newest and most commendable fashion of dressing, boyling, sowcing, or roasting all manner either flesh, fish or any kind of fowle. Together with an exact order of making kickshawes, or made dishes of any fashion, fit to beautifie either noblemens or gentlemans table. All set forth according to the now new English and French fashion." ~ Textblock contiguous but partially dis-bound. In a brown buckram chemise and slip case. Pages are brittle. [A1] title, within an ornamental border, loose and frayed at edges, with loss of last line and the date in as well as some of the border; Some fraying of first few leaves, not affecting text. Final leaf or two (K4, K5) lacking. All in all, good. Very rare. Known only in one copy in a private collection, and a single title leaf in the British Library (see Notaker). Provenance: Woolley & Wallis sale on 19th June 1996 of some books belonging to Nancy Spain, Isabella Beeton's great-niece, and authoress of Mrs. Beeton and her Husband, (London: Collins 1948). Ex libris Joan Dawson. [OCLC locates no copy of this edition; [OCLC locates no copy of this edition; COPAC (2019) locates a fragment - only the title page - of this edition at the British Library; Notaker 525.7 (locates the BL fragment and indicates a copy in a private collection (this copy); Oxford page 19].