A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye

Abstract

WHETHER cookery-books should rank as literature is a question upon which opinions may well differ. Charles Lamb, we fear, would have stigmatised the majority of them as among the books which are no books. But what ever exceptions he might have been induced to make, one of them would certainly have been Miss Frere's work. And this because of his reverence for things ancient and of good repute. It would have quickened his instincts as a bibliograph, and he would have chuckled over the evidence of the playful imagination, delicate wit, and subtle humour with which the editor has embellished the setting of her antique and historic jewel. He would have appreciated, too, the element of comedy in the fact that although Miss Frere, as she frankly confesses, has never had the opportunity of acquiring the art of cookery, she should yet have been fated to edit no fewer than four books on the subject.

A Proper Newe Booke of Cokerye.

Edited by Catherine F. Frere. Pp. clxiv + 124. (Cambridge: Heffer and Sons, Ltd., 1913.) Price 7s. 6d. net.