first edition
1885 · Boston
by Daniell, Olive C. [Olive Corell Guild Daniell (1831-1909)]
Boston: by the author; Cupples, Upham & Co., Old Corner Bookstore, 1885. Duodecimo (17.25 x 11.5 cm.), 47 pages. Table of contents. Index. Date of publication from title-page verso. Evident FIRST EDITION. A carefully-arranged anthology of baking recipes by a teacher of cookery, whose title likely was chosen to attract the eyes of passers-by from the local bookshop window. With seventy-five recipes for cakes, cookies, and frosting; among them: Almond Pound Cake, Hartford Queen Cake, Riverdale Cake, Providence Cake, Dover Cake, Nantucket Plum Cake, Cider Cake, Wine Cake, Huckleberry Cake. ~ Too little is known of Olive Corell Guild Daniell (1831-1909), an author and cookery instructor of some local renown in MIddlesex County, in eastern Massachusetts. Her reputation appears to have been secured by the publication of Dedham Receipts, a work known in various instantiations from the early 1870s (cf. Margaret Cook, America's Charitable Cooks [Kent, Ohio: the author, 1871], page 106), and whose full bibliographic history awaits exploration. ~ A decade later, in December 1881, Daniell succeeded Maria Parloa as lecturer in the pioneering domestic science curriculum at Lasell Seminary for Young Women in the neighboring town of Auburndale. "On the afternoon of Dec. 12th we all gathered in the gymnasium," recounted one of her students, "to hear the first lecture of our course on Cookery, which was to be given by Mrs. Daniell, of Dedham. As she was a new teacher and none of us had seen her before, we were eager for a glimpse, and when she came in we were all charmed by her delightful motherly air" ("Cookery in Lasell," Lasell Leaves 7, no. 4 [January 1882], page 6). She would teach at Lasell for four years, as Parloa had done before her, until December 1885, after which the reins were transferred to Mary Lincoln ("Mrs. A. [recte D.] L. Lincoln, of Wollaston, Mass., has succeeded Mrs. Daniell, our old teacher, as instructor in cooking" ["1886," Lasell Leaves 11, no. 4 (January 1886), page 1]). ~ The Dedham Cook-Book revises the first chapter of Dedham Receipts in light of the author's pedagogical experiences at Lasell and in guest lectures elsewhere (e.g., those announced in The Hartford [Connecticut] Courant 47, no. 80 [3 April 1883], page 1). Considerable attention is given the preparation of ingredients (e.g., stoning raisins; slicing citron), as well as advice on equipment: "A Dover egg-beater is the best beater yet invented" (page 9). Text block age-toned, and with a tiny wormhole to bottom edge, not effecting text; hinges started. In publisher's limp navy cloth, gilt-titled on the front panel; cloth is mottled and a bit stained. Good. [OCLC locates four copies; Brown 1523; not in Bitting or Cagle]. (Inventory #: 9423)
