• Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [RUTH, George Herman “Babe” (1895-1948)]. Signed photograph. Circa 1930s. 191 x 248 mm. $1,500 to $2,500.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HARRISON, Benjamin. Document signed (“Benj Harrison”) as governor of Virginia, certifying the service of Daniel Cumbo, a Black Revolutionary soldier. $6,000 to $9,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: ONE OF THE FIRST PRINTED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: FIRST PRINTING OF LINCOLN’S IMMORTAL GETTYSBURG ADDRESS. $4,000 to $6,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: HIGHLY IMPORTANT MORMON ARCHIVE. ALLEY, George. Archive of 23 Autograph Letters Signed by Mormon Convert George Alley to His Brother Joseph Alley. $10,000 to $20,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [AVIATION]. [ARMSTRONG, Neil A.] Aviation Hall of Fame Gold Medal MS64 NGC, Awarded to Neil Armstrong in 1979. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: NEWLY DISCOVERED FIRST PRINTING OF "WITH MALICE TOWARDS NONE... " FROM THE ONLY NEWSPAPER ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PARTICIPATE IN LINCOLN’S SECOND INAUGURAL PROCESSION. $4,000 to $8,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: THE MOST IMPORTANT GEORGE WASHINGTON DOCUMENT IN PRIVATE HANDS; GEORGE WASHINGTON’S COMMISSION AS COMMANDER IN CHIEF, 1775, ONE OF ONLY TWO ORIGINALS. $150,000 to $250,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: A VERY RARE ACCOUNT OF BLACKBEARD’S DEATH AND ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PIRATE ITEMS EXTANT. $3,000 to $5,000.
    Potter & Potter Auctions
    How History Unfolds on Paper:
    Choice Selections from the Eric C. Caren Collection
    Part IX
    April 18, 2024
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: EDISON, Thomas. Patent for Edison’s Improvements on the Electric-Light, No. 219,628. [Washington, D.C.: U.S. Patent Office], 16 September 1879. $2,000 to $3,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: [VIETNAM WAR]. The original pen used by Secretary of State William P. Rogers to sign the Vietnam Peace Agreement, Paris, 27 January 1973. $10,000 to $15,000.
    Potter & Potter, Apr. 18: SONS OF LIBERTY FOUNDER COLONEL BARRÉ ANNOTATED TITLE-PAGE, “WHICH OUGHT TO ROUSE UP BRITISH ATTENTION”. $4,000 to $6,000.
  • Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG BEADED JUDICIAL COLLAR. $80,000 - $120,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: ONLY KNOWN COPY OF THE ONLY BOOK BY THE REMARKABLE EVE ADAMS. $8,000 - $12,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A COMPLETE RUN OF VISIONAIRE MAGAZINE THROUGH 2010. $6,000 - $9,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: LAW REVIEW OFFPRINT SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY RUTH BADER GINSBURG. $3,000 - $5,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: META REBNER'S WORKING SCRIPT OF THE LOVED ONE. $1,500 - $2,000
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A KATHY GROVE PORTRAIT OF CYNDI LAUPER FOR THE FEBRUARY 1989 DETAILS COVER. $800 - $1,200
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A PLASTIC COAT BY MILLIE DAVID FEATURED IN SOHO NEWS STYLE SECTION, FROM THE COLLECTION OF ANNIE FLANDERS. $500 - $700
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A RUTH BADER GINSBURG JEWELRY BOX. $600 - $900
    Bonhams, Mar. 22 – Apr. 2: A SET OF JONI MITCHELL LYRICS FOR "IF I HAD A HEART." $2,000 - $3,000
  • Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: [Langland (William)]. The vision of Pierce Plowman, nowe the seconde time imprinted..., Roberte Crowley, 1550. £8,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: [Shakespeare (William)]. [Comedies, Histories, and Tragedies], second folio edition, [by Tho.Cotes, for Robert Allot], [1632]. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Bible, Czech Biblia Bohemica, first complete Bible printed in the Czech vernacular, Prague, August 1488. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Shabthai Tzvi.- Collection of four printed and illustrated broadsides detailing the appearance, rise and fall of the false messiah, Shabthai Tzvi, Augsburg, 1666-67. £40,000 to £60,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Leaf from the Beauvais Missal, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [Northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens)], [fourteenth century (c.1310)]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Aubrey (John). [Remaines of Gentilisme and Judaisme], manuscript in English, Latin and Greek, [c. 1693]. £30,000 to £50,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: Byron (George Gordon Noel, Lord). Poems on Various Occasions, first edition, Harriet Maltby's copy, Newark, Printed by S. & J. Ridge, 1807. £30,000 to £40,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Tolkien (J.R.R.) The Hobbit, first edition, second impression with dust-jacket, 1937 [but 1938]. £7,000 to £10,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Blake (William).- Thornton (Robert John). The Pastorals of Virgil, 2 vol., engraved plates by William Blake, 1821. £8,000 to £12,000.
    Forum Auctions
    Books, Manuscripts and Works on Paper
    28th March 2024
    Forum Mar. 28: America.- Mount (William J.) & Thomas Page. The English Pilot…, [bound with] The Fourth Book, describing The West Indies Navigation from Hudson's-Bay to the River Amazones, 1721. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Oldfield (Henry Ambrose), Rajman Singh Chitrakar & others. An album of 160 photographs and 13 original artworks, (1833-1919), [c. 1850s-1880s]. £20,000 to £30,000.
    Forum Mar. 28: Audubon (John James) [and William MacGillivray]. Ornithological Biography…, 5 vol., first edition, presentation copy inscribed by Audubon, Edinburgh, 1831-49 [i.e. 1831-39]. £10,000 to £15,000.
  • 19th Century Shop
    Catalogue 198 just published
    19th Century Shop. Darwin and Wallace, first printing of the first paper on natural selection
    19th Century Shop. Shakespeare’s Poems, first collected edition
    19th Century Shop. Walt Whitman portrait inscribed with a Leaves of Grass poem
    19th Century Shop. Major Elizabeth Barrett Browning manuscript notebook
    19th Century Shop. Spock's Baby Book, original MS
    19th Century Shop. Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, the great celestial atlas

Rare Book Monthly

Book Catalogue Reviews - February - 2017 Issue

The Christopher Hogwood Library of Food & Drink from Bernard Quaritch Ltd.

Mrs. Raffald graces the cover of Bernard Quaritch's catalogue of food and drink.

The late Christopher Hogwood made his reputation reproducing antiquarian music. His résumé was long and varied, including positions in his home country of England and Europe, along with a stint as Artistic Director for Boston's prestigious Handel and Haydn Society. Hogwood focused on old instruments and reproducing the sound as it was centuries ago. One might expect that his library would be devoted to books about music and musical scores. That expectation would be incomplete. Mr. Hogwood had a second love – food. Of course, we all love food, but just as he focused on antiquarian music, so did Hogwood focus on antiquarian food. Indeed, he saw a great similarity between the two.

 

Hogwood concentrated on the exact sound of each old instrument. Likewise, he focused on each ingredient in a dish, noting how one wrong ingredient, like one one wrong instrument, can spoil a stew (or musical piece). And so, he compiled a library of recipe books, mostly quite old, from which he recreated older dishes, just as he recreated older music.

 

Bernard Quaritch Ltd. recently issued a catalogue entitled From the Library of Christopher Hogwood, Books & Manuscripts on Food & Drink. The library represents not just a collection for the sake of collecting, but his source for recreating the foods people ate many generations ago. As such, these books can be used for a collection, for research, or even, as did Mr. Hogwood, whipping up something unusual in the kitchen. Here are a few samples from the library.

 

We begin with a manuscript recipe book from the 17th century, kept by an unknown cook. It consists of 75 dishes, some of which may make people today a bit squeamish. Then again, some people may still enjoy roasted calf's head, hogs' feet and ears, and pickled pigeons. At least pickling pigeons provides some use for these generally annoying birds. It also includes a "Pudding from Turkey," which is not, thankfully, pudding made from the fowl, but a Turkish pudding. That sounds better until the ingredients are revealed – bread, anchovy and oysters. I'm one of the few people who like anchovies, at least on pizza, but in pudding? Quaritch notes, these "epitomise dishes which fell out of favor," indeed an understatement, but then adds, "became fashionable again at the end of the twentieth century." It takes a strong stomach to be fashionable these days. Item 1. Priced at £3,000 (British pounds, or approximately $3,668 in U.S. dollars).

 

In case you do not immediately recognize the lady on the cover of this catalogue, she is Elizabeth Raffald, her dress and bonnet appropriate for her era, the 18th century. Mrs. Raffald was for fifteen years a housekeeper for Lady Elizabeth Warburton, to whom she dedicated this book. In the process, she put together a selection of 800 recipes, along with picking up a husband, John Raffald, the estate gardener. Though employed as a housekeeper, Mrs. Raffald was better educated than most in her station, her father having been a teacher. She proved a very successful author with this book, The Experienced English Housekeeper... It went through 13 authorized editions from 1769-1810, along with 25 pirated ones. This is the eleventh, from 1794. She never intended to have her portrait included with her recipes, it only appearing from the eight edition on, published after she died. After working on the Warburton estate, she sold the rights to her book for £1,400, an enormous sum in her day, and opened up a confection shop and engaged in other business ventures. She was a shrewd businesswoman, but unfortunately, Mr. Raffald was a drunkard and spendthrift, wasting her earnings. A 19th century book claimed she had 16 children, all daughters, though church records show only 6. Many historians say the number was 9. What is known is she outlived all but 3 of them, though she died at age 48. Hopefully, none of this reflects on her cooking. Item 46. £700 (US $854).

 

Quoting V. McLean's 1981 bibliography of English cook books, Quaritch notes that Mrs. Raffald was, "after Hannah Glasse, the most celebrated English cookery writer of the 18th century." Here is Hannah Glasse's The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, Which Far Exceeds Any Thing of the Kind Ever Yet Published... Evidently, Mrs. Glasse did not suffer from excessive modesty. Item 23 is a third edition, published in 1748. The book's popularity was such that it was printed in 20 editions, continuing well into the next century. Unfortunately, Mrs. Glasse suffered financial difficulties, was forced to sell the copyright to her popular book, and ended up in debtor's prison, where meals probably did not meet her expert standards. Mrs. Glasse did not identify herself in the book, authorship attributed simply to "a Lady." It took 200 years for this to be conclusively established. However, it led to an interesting dispute between good buddies James Boswell and Samuel Johnson. Boswell claimed it was written by a Dr. Hill, on the grounds that such a well-ordered book could not possibly have been written by a woman. Johnson responded that it must have been written by a woman as the book contained a misunderstanding of saltpetre that no man could ever make. I'm not sure which of these two characters was the greater male chauvinist. £3,000 (US $3,668).

 

You may not be aware of this, but Joseph Conrad once wrote a preface to a cookbook. Why? Perhaps it had something to do with the author being his wife, Jessie Conrad. Friends thought Jessie an odd match for Conrad, an ordinary working class woman matched with a great writer, but she was known as an excellent cook. Conrad was a great devotee of his wife's cooking, and pushed to have her cookbook published. In his preface, he opines that good cooking promotes good health better than any "quack's" medicine, and that he is a "Living Example" of that fact. Her book is A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House...With a Preface by Joseph Conrad. It was published in 1923, and the health magic of her cooking must have run out soon thereafter as Mr. Conrad ceased to be a "living example" the following year. Item 75. £250 (US $305).

 

Here is a broadside recounting a bit of dirty laundry between a "lady," who seems not to have been much of a lady, and her cook. The heading reads Curious Charge at Marlborough-st. Between a Lady & Her Cook, Concerning a Rump Steak... It was reprinted from The Observer in 1818. The lady was the Hon. Mrs. Ferguson, her cook Elizabeth Creswell. Ms. Creswell had purchased a rump steak for Mrs. Ferguson larger than the latter wanted, explaining that the error was the butcher's. Evidently, that did not convince the Lady as she flew into a rage, throwing the steak at her cook, pinching and scratching her, and throwing her downstairs. She also called the cook a "filthy impertinent wench." This is not the best way to treat the help. Ms. Creswell sued her boss, with the case being settled out of court. Item 59. £400 (US $488).

 

Bernard Quartitch Ltd. may be reached at +44 (0)20 7297 4888 or rarebooks@quaritch.com. Their website is www.quaritch.com.

Rare Book Monthly

  • Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Alken (Henry). Sporting Notions, first edition, T.McLean, 1832-33. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Bardi (Lorenzo). Nuova Raccolta delle piu interessanti Vedute della Citta di Firenze…, Florence, Lorenzo Bardi, [c.1840]. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Crawfurd (John). Journal of an Embassy from the Governor-General of India to the Court of Ava..., first edition, 1829. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions
    Colour Plate Books from the Library of Norman Bobins
    Part 2
    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Dawe (George, engraver). The Life of a Nobleman, first edition, Geo. Henderson, [c.1825]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: [Doyle (John)], "H.B.". Political Sketches &c., 10 vol. including The Descriptive Key to H.B., Thomas McLean, [1829-51]. £4,000 to £6,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Eben (Adolphus Christian Frederick, Baron von) and Nicolaus Heideloff. Modèles de l'Uniforme Militaire Adopté dans l'Armée Royale de Suède, Rudolph Ackerman, 1808. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Geissler (J.G.G.) and Friedrich Hempel. Mahlerische Darstellungen der Sitten, Gebrauche und Lustbarkeiten bey den Russischen, Tartarischen…, 4 parts in 1, Leipzig and Paris, [1804]. £1,000 to £1,500.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Hunt (Charles). Portraits of Winning Horses...of the Derby, Oaks, & St. Leger, from the Year 1842 to 1849…, Rock Brothers & Payne, 1849. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Kunike (Adolf Friedrich). Zwey hundert und sechzig Donau-Ansichten nach dem Laufe des Donaustromes…, Vienna, Leopold Grund, 1826. £3,000 to £5,000.
    Forum Auctions
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    27th March 2024
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Lasinio (Carlo). [Matrimony], Florence, 1790. £1,500 to £2,000.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Reinhardt (Joseph). A Collection of Swiss Costumes, in Miniature, second English edition, James Goodwin, [1828]. £800 to £1,200.
    Forum Auctions, Mar. 27: Wengen (Gottfried Durst von). Die Öffentliche Maskerade Bamberg am Fastnachts-Montage 1833…, Bamberg, [1833]. £2,000 to £3,000.
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