Author: Cookery.
Title: The Australian Housewives' Manual: a book for beginners and people with small incomes. By an Old Housekeeper. [bound with] Australian Plain Cookery. By a Practical Cook. Fourth edition. [bound with] Men, and How to Manage Them. A book for Australian wives and mothers. By an Old Housekeeper.
Description: Melbourne, Massina 1883; n.d.; 1885. Three volumes octavo, together in contemporary half roan (worn but solid). Spots and signs of use but pretty good. Bound without wrappers and additional adverts. ¶ Three rare cookery/household books for the price of ... well, three. Ferguson's generation didn't pay much attention to cookbooks but he was pretty diligent: he found one copy of the Housewives' Manual (and two of the second edition including his own); two copies of the seventh edition only of Plain Cookery; and one copy of Men. Today Trove finds one copy of the Housewives' Manual (and five of the second edition); five locations altogether for the second, third, sixth and seventh editions of Plain Cookery; and three locations for Men. So despite the keen hunt for these things in the last few decades they've hardly come pouring out of old pantries and larders.

Keywords: social history trades technology food cooking economics c19th Australia cookery household cook books