Modern Cookery for Private Families

(first published in 1845) Reprint of the extended edition of 1855 as edited by Eliza Acton. The most widely used of all the Victorian cookery books, much admired for its limpid style and incomparable recipes, and for the classic English style it represents. Eliza Acton's receipts show English cookery at its very best, before the over-elaboration of late Victorianism overtook it. She was writing for small families, so quantities in the recipes hardly need to be altered. Her personality shows strongly all through her book: she was precise, orderly, very observant, and mistress of an estimable prose style. With an introduction by Elizabeth Ray, who unearths some previously unknown facts about Eliza's life.