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First edition of a detailed treatise on household management for young women, presented in epistolary form. It was to become very popular, running to several editions by the middle of the century, but the first edition is rare. Starting by establishing the principles of order and economy it proceeds to give advice on a suitable house, its furnishing (with chapters on the dining room, salon, bedrooms for both madame and monsieur, and kitchen). There is information on the linen provision and washing, and choice of fabrics, as well as on personal dress. Two of the longer chapters consider the appointment and operation of the wine cellar (over which the mistress of the house had control) and the kitchen, the latter with a selection of useful recipes and dishes.

Though separately-published, it is one of the volumes of the series Encyclopédie des Dames issued by Audot from 1821, which provided titles useful and interesting to women, all in portable format like this. This copy was apparently a subscriber’s copy, with the half-title bearing the printed statement ‘Exemplaire imprimé pour la Bibliothèque de Mademoiselle Emma de Kolly’, and it is therefore likely that the arms on the upper cover are also hers (though we have been unable to discover anything more about her). WorldCat finds only one copy of the first edition outside continental Europe (University of Michigan).

A fascinating guide to the Yoshiwara pleasure quarter of the mid-eighteenth century. Shinpan Sancha daihyoban is a rare early survival of a book of the hyōban-ki genre —’reputation books’, which reviewed and ranked kabuki actors and courtesans, but which in this case is specifically devoted to brothels and the women who worked within them.

The title uses the term sancha as designation for a high-class of prostitute of courtesan (‘joro’) known as sancha-jōro, who followed in rank the taiyū-jōro and koshi-jōro, but was superior to the umecha-jōro class. All these ranks borrow their terminology from tea-making practices, Sancha referring to a powdered tea (similar to matcha) that could be prepared simply by mixing it with hot water—unlike earlier methods that required steeping tea leaves in a cloth and shaking the bag. The ease of preparing sancha came to symbolize the accessibility of sancha-jōro—a courtesan class that, while still prestigious, was less selective with clientele. This accessibility probably explains why the book focuses on the sancha-jōro offering readers a sense of possibility and approachability.

The book catalogues the names of sancha-jōro and the chaya (tea houses, or brothels) they were affiliated with. Importantly, it also highlights their individual skills. While these women are often associated primarily with sex work, they were trained entertainers. At the higher ranks, they were expected to demonstrate talents in music, singing, the tea ceremony, poetry, and other refined arts. This guide served not only to inform potential visitors but also to allow them to request specific courtesans based on their accomplishments.

Additionally, the book provides valuable insight into the publishing and distribution practices related to Yoshiwara’s pleasure quarters, which became historically significant as a cradle of modern publishing practices in Japan. Importantly, our book predates by several years the work of Tsutaya Jūzaburō, the famed publisher known for producing numerous popular guides to Yoshiwara. Although published by Maruya Shōbei in the Nihonbashi district, it was distributed by Honya Yashichi, a bookstore operating within Yoshiwara itself.

Though not quite the same as the lewd eighteenth century guides to Western prostitutes such as Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies in London (published 1760-794) the existence of Shinpan Sancha daihyoban provides an interesting point of reference in compariing sexual culture and publishing practise in No copies located in institutions outside Japan.

First edition of an account of some of Paris’s famous cafés: le café Foy, le Procope, le Buci, la brasserie Saint-Séverin, etc.

First edition, ‘tiré à petit nombre pour les amateurs’ for the series ‘Petite bibliothèque des curieux’. A rare work in which ‘the author reviews the famous wines and the principal cabarets of the 17th century and recounts many interesting and amusing anecdotes about them’ (Bitting).
Bitting, p. 160; Vicaire, col. 366.

First edition, elephantine in ambition and appetite; 1155 pages of culinary erudition and extravagance. Penned with the same gusto that sent Edmond Dantès leaping from the Château d’If and Athos lunging for his rapier, Dumas père’s Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine is a feast in alphabetic form. Here, the humble garlic clove receives as much affection as a noble pheasant stuffed with truffles. Recipes jostle alongside meditations on oysters, memories of lavish banquets, and philosophical musings on the proper preparation of a stew. Begun in his later years with the intention of bestowing upon France a culinary monument, the dictionary reads as a dialogue between gourmand and gastronome, peppered with wit and unapologetically subjective declarations (’England has only three sauces, and two of them are mustard’). This is not a manual — it is a memoir in flavours, a patriotic act of seasoning, and a final course served by one of literature’s great lions. Bitting p.135; Cagle 171; Oberle 238; Vicaire 297.

A wonderful satire on contemporary women’s fashion. The 1820s had seen considerable change in women’s fashions, with neoclassical straight lines and sparse adornments giving way to a more exhuberant and romantic style with more emphasis on curvaceous shapes, cheekily satirised here with wine glass and fruit.�
An inverted wine-glass (claret shape), partly fluted, represents a woman; the bowl is a bell-shaped petticoat, the stem a pinched waist and bodice; the wide base forms the brim of her plateau-hat on which stands a cork with a metal rim and upstanding ring to form the narrow jam-pot crown. On the base (or brim) are bunches of grapes from which hang trails of vine leaves. Tied symmetrically to the stem are two pears, representing inflated sleeves, the stalks serving for wrists and hands. Below the design: ‘Turn a tumbler up side down / The foot for a hat and a cork for the crown /Some grapes for trimming, will give an air / And as for Sleeves have ready a pear /When join'd to gather tis sure to tell /A picture true, of a modern belle’.

The 'P. P.' of the signature reads: ‘what have we got here by Jove what we are all fond of a Lass & à Glass my service to you Gents tis but a frail fair after all’. BM Satires 15611.

First edition in French and slightly revised edition of the author’s 1922 classic, Cocktails. How to Mix Them, which was notably the first book to print the recipe for the Sidecar. Vermeire, one of the most influential cocktail personalities of the past century, was a Belgian bartender who plied his trade in London during the European Golden Age before opening ‘Roberts’ in his home town of Knokke, Belgium. The volume includes recipes for Slings, Fizzes, Cobblers as well as recipes for medicinal drinks, such as the usual hot toddy for a cold, but also absinthe for a headache and champagne for seasickness. A very pleasing copy of this classic cocktail book.�

A classic pre-Prohibition American cocktail book. Jacob ‘Jack’ Grohusko was the head bartender at Baracca’s restaurant in New York, having been born in England to a Russian Jewish family and brought to New York as an infant. Jack’s Manual has 17 pages on the different types of wine (particularly champagne, sauternes and burgundies) and liquor, and 61 pages of recipes for cocktails.

This 1910 edition was preceded by a very rare 1908 edition (NLM and LC only in Worldcat). Jack’s was the first cocktail book to include the Brooklyn, perhaps his own creation, and several others which would be immortalised in the much later Savoy Cocktail Book (1930).

A very scarce early temperance movement sermon. ‘The use of liquor is inconsistent with any thing like pure and high spiritual enjoyment, clear spiritual views, and true devotion...’. Published in New York in the National Preacher in 1831 and rapidly reprinted within just a few months in several editions in London, where the Temperance movement was in its infancy. The British and Foreign Temperance Society issued its first report in 1831 (an extract is reproduced on p. 16 here). Worldcat/LibraryHub locate only a handful of copies of all issues, American and British (the former being extracts from the National Preacher).

A very neat collection of popular songs, most from the 1850s, of the sort circulated in ephemeral printed and manuscript song sheets. Highlights include: Est-ce le hatchich qui t’a mis comme ça: an uncommon reference to hashish in this context, and a song (in common with several others in the manuscript) for which we can find no printed source. Sung to the tune of ‘Aÿ chiquita’, this is a woman’s complaint to her suitor, with the chorus:

‘Est-ce l’absinthe, ou bien encore,
Le hatchich qui t’as mis, dis-moi,
Dans cet état que j’aborre,
Et tu veux m’aimer! Ah! Tais-toi.’

This is hardly Baudelaire, but a pleasing contemporary parallel to Les Paradis artificiels.

Others include Les Cris de Paris, Les Chemins de fer and Les Anges de la charité ou les inondés de 1856 and there are songs attributable to Pierre Dupont and Charles Durand, both popular in the 1850s and 60s. Some are in dialect and typically, the subjects tend towards love, drink and gastronomy, but there are also a couple alluding to the language of flowers. The compilation is scrupulously neat—and is presumably, in part, an exercise in penmanship.

Four rare perfume labels, colour printed ‘à la poupée’ with floral designs: Extrait de Rose et de Pois de senteur, Extrait de Jonquille, Extrait d’Oranges de Portugal, Extrait suave. The largest (Extrait de Rose includes a space below for a text or legend, uninked or cancelled in this example, but with traces of the engraved text visible. A charming and rare example of this colour printing technique in which each impression contains all the colours at once, with inks carefully applied to the plate with a cushion-headed tool (the ‘poupée’ or doll). The technique is immediately recognisable from the gentle gradations between the various colours of the resulting imprint.

Compiled in the town of Popovo in the wine-growing region of North Eastern Bulgaria, this souvenir album was compiled by a federation of three local temperance societies and given to one ‘Monsieur Dr. P. Legrain’. Most of the photographic postcards depict society outings, with large groups of men, women and children usually in outdoor settings in all seasons (including what appear to be very harsh winters). Several of the photographs were taken at harvest time, with copious bunches of grapes in evidence. The context of the presentation is not immediately obvious, though may be apparent in the three long inscriptions in Bulgarian accompanied by the purple inkstamps of each of the societies.

Second edition (first 1724) of Hoffmann’s “Complete Instruction for a safe, sensible and medically respected practice of medicine”: a very extensive baroque medical compendium.

Friedrich Hoffmann (1660-1742), a German physician, practised and taught medicine, chemistry and physics in Halle from 1693. He studied and wrote on such varied topics as paediatrics, mineral waters and meteorology and introduced many new drugs into medical practice (such as a compound spirit of ether branded “Anodyne” and “Hoffmanns-Tropfen” still today known as a household remedy). Hoffmann was among the first to describe several diseases, including appendicitis and German measles, and to recognize the regulatory role of the nervous system.

The work contains examinations of common ailments such as fever, infections, haemorrhaging, cramps, spasms and convulsions, consideration of the cerebral and nervous system, lymph and glands, female complaints and childhood illnesses. It also includes numerous medicinal recipes and cures. Not in Wellcome (the catalogue lists the first edition only); the NLM online catalogue lists the first edition of 1724 and another of 1743 only.

First American edition. Published one year after the English first but suprisingly much scarcer with no copies listed in copac. The volume provides a miscellany of anecdotes on food, drink, dining, coffeehouses, and cafes.