Royal-cookery: or, the Compleat Court-Cook: Containing the choicest receipts in all the several branches of cookery, viz. for making of soops, bisques, olio's, terrines, surtouts, puptons, ragoos, forc'd-meats, sauces, pattys, pies, tarts, tansies, cakes, puddings, jellies, &c. as likewise forty pl

London: Printed for J. Nutt and A. Roper, 1716. Second, much expanded edition, with "several new cuts and above five Hundred new receipts." Octavo (7 5/8 x 4 1/2 inches; 195 x 115 mm) [8], 302, [10] pp. Five of the final leaves comprise 'A bill of fare for every season in the year.' Complete with forty engraved plates, thirty-three of which are folding. Plates are not bound in numerical order, but all are present. This edition is mentioned in Bitting, but not in the collection.

Contemporary paneled calf, rebacked to style. Newer red morocco spine label. lettered in gilt. Board edges gilt. Previous owner's armorial bookplate on front pastedown. A bit of minor staining and a few very minor marginal wormholes. A paper flaw to plate " 9" and plate "11' trimmed close, mildly affecting engraving. Overall text and plates generally very clean. A very good copy.

"In August 1677 Lamb was appointed as master cook to the queen consort, held in tandem with the office of sergeant of his majesty's pastry in ordinary, to which he was elevated in November 1677. Finally, in February 1683, Lamb attained the status of master cook to the monarch. He was reappointed to this post under the successive household regulations of James II, William and Mary, and Anne, and was removed from it only by death. His services as a royal cook encompassed the provision of prepared dishes for daily and extraordinary consumption by the monarch and his guests at table...Lamb's culinary skills were most effectively demonstrated in extraordinary events, and his claims for large expenditures on such occasions as the Westminster visit of the Venetian ambassadors in December 1685 testify to the splendour of these...These and other junkets are evoked in the text of Royal Cookery, published posthumously in London under Lamb's name by John Morphew and Abel Roper in 1710, and subsequently reprinted in 1716, 1726, and 1731. The text incorporated recipes for elaborate dishes alongside engravings of lavish table layouts for occasions such as royal suppers. Such details suggest that the text was drawn from Lamb's papers, rather than being speculatively published under his name as some contemporaries contended." (Oxford DNB).

Bitting, Pg.271. ESTC T91553.

HBS 68226.

$3,000.