The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy; Excelling Any Thing of the Kind Ever Yet Published

Alexandria [Virginia]: Cottom and Stewart. 1812. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall. H Hard Cover. Poor. Rough but complete copy of this hard-to-find work on cooking and food and menu selection, also a scarce pre-Civil War Virginia imprint. Unfortunately this copy does indeed appear to have been through the war, with scorched covers and smoke-darkened outer edges, a few smoke whispers in the margins, but the text complete, readable and barely touched by the smoke darkening. Full calf of the period with gilt spine ruling and old repair to the rear cover, 288, xii pages, endpapers still present but with excess creasing and a few tiny edge chips. Covers are dried and blackened, especially the front cover, with the calf curled back from the underlying composition board which has warped considerably. Text block is somewhat shaken with a few gatherings a little loosened but not detached, contents protruding from the covers at the outer edges, pages generally clean with the aforenoted minor smoke traces in the margins, some darkening to the upper corner of the title page and first page of text, names of Israel Gillett and Susan Morris on front free endpaper along with the name Regent in all caps. Good rebinding candidate but readable as is.