The Keeyuga Cookery Book

McGowan, Henrietta C. The Keeyuga Cookery Book. [FIRST EDITION] Thomas C Lothian: Melbourne, Australia 1911. 8vo (190x130mm) illust stamped red & black printed tan cloth bds, xii,191,[1],16(publisher catalogue)pp.

McGowan, Henrietta C. [ Henrietta Celeste or Mrs Frank Walker (1866 - 1937)]

The Keeyuga¹ Cookery Book.

Melbourne :  Thomas C Lothian, 1911. First edition. Printed by Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome & London.

Octavo (190x130mm) illustrated red & black printed stamped tan cloth boards, heavy cream paper, xii,191,[1],16(publisher catalogue)pp: π⁶,B-N⁸,[O]⁸.  Illustration by Alek Sass.² Sixteen full page in-text advertisements, most illustrated; numerous head and tail piece advertisements throughout as well as running title advertisements to every page.  Boards rubbed; head and foot of spine gently pushed; corners gently bruised; offset toning to endpapers; occasional light foxing; occasional small signs of kitchen use; generally crisp and clean.


The introductory chapters are short and include Meals make the Man, Bachelor meals (for the bachelor maid and bachelor man), Swedish Cookery (i.e., haybox cookery), Emergency Meals, Cookery for Children, School Lunches and Camp Life and Weekend Cookery.  There are 22 recipes in the introductory chapters, and a further 740, mostly British in origin, in the main section of the text. 

Feted on release by the publisher for the breadth and detail of the recipes³, The Keeyuga is notable for the rich collection of advertisements casting light on the consumption of Australians, the consideration and provision of recipes for those women who sold food products for a living, the section on leisure or camp life and weekend cookery (which was quite novel for its time) and the content dedicated to batchelor women, recognising the class of women who did not marry or raise families or maintain  a household.


Henrietta McGowan was a pioneering woman journalist who edited a women's page for The Age newspaper in Melbourne for seventeen years. She had a keen interest in issues affecting women, especially working women, borne out by the chapters noted above.

Scarce.  An excellent copy of an early Australian feminist cookery book.

§  OCLC records only 7 holdings.
§   Hoyle 823;

¹  "Keeyuga" - Western district  of Victoria Western Kulin Tjapwurrung dialect meaning "within"
²  Sass (1877-1922) was a British born, Australian woodcut artist.
³  McGowan was described as "The Australian Mrs Beeton" and "The Australian Unbeaten" p.9 of the publisher's catalogue.