Description
[003919] [Atkyns, Arabella] (Pseud.) The Family Magazine: In Two Parts. Part I. Containing Useful Directions in All the Branches of House-Keeping and Cookery: Part II. Containing a Compendius Body of Physick. London: J. Osborn, 1741. First Edition. 8vo. Hardback. Good. [2], iii-xiv, [3], 2-123pp, [3]; [2], 324pp, two parts in one. Modern full calf, raised bands, spine in six panels, leather title label to second panel, date in gilt to foot, bands with gilt double rules above and below, covers with double fillet border and fleuron corner pieces, blind rolls to edges and inner edges
Externally very good. Internally lightly browned throughout, occasional light soiling, mainly to margins, some light foxing but tolerable, small piece missing from fore edge margin of T4. Note in pen to head of title, with near contemporary previous owner’s name (Alexander Riddle) to head of preface
Text in double column, with a few woodcut ‘bills of fare’ to text. The first part is cookery, including making English wines, the second ‘medical’
The preface is signed ‘Arabella Atkyns’ a pseudonym, used due to “my relation to several honourable Persons, who would not be well pleased, perhaps, to see my Name in Publick, on such an Occasion” (page xiv)
Bitting, page 550; Cagle 673; MacLean, page 49; Oxford, pages 71-72 (notes that while the “cookery part is well arranged, the medical part is full of horrors”); Simon BG 658 (again noting that the second part dealing with remedies, “some [are] most fantastic and some really horrible”); Wellcome II: 67
