The Brockton Hospital Cook Book: Better than the Best. Published by The Brockton Hospital Ladies' Aid Association. [Compiled by Mrs. Charles C. Merritt. Edited by George Clarence Holmes.] 1910 [i.e., Second] edition

Brockton: Standard Printing Company, 1910. Octavo in wrappers (21 x 15 cm.), 239 pages. Advertisements. Blanks. Photograph of the Hospital by G. C. Holmes on title page. Cover title: Brockton Hospital Cook Book 1910. Presumed second edition, parallel wrappered issue. A sizable charitable cookbook of seven hundred fifty attributed recipes, over six hundred of which were "not in the 1906 edition", according to a note on the title page. Evidently a second edition, then, though the first remains unreported. It is secondarily an advertising vehicle for This Is Holmes, chiefly a supplier of coal for cook stoves but also a general store of sorts. Recipes are mostly New England standards of the time with occasional variations: Shredded Wheat Omelet, Peanut Soup, Quahaug Fritters, Stuffed Bermuda Onions, Hungarian Potato Salad (with beets and sardines), Turkish Dousma, Sultana Roll, Grapefruit Sherbet, Wauwinet Cakes, Beach Plum Jelly. The foundation of a public hospital in Brockton, in Plymouth County, was one of several long-term philanthropic projects undertaken by the coal and newspaper magnate George Clarence Holmes (1853-1924). Fundraising began in 1889; the first building complex opened its doors in 1896; and Holmes himself served as President of the Board until 1906. Holmes also oversaw the publication of the Cook Book – it is his name that appears in the U. S. Copyright Registry, and he identifies himself in a foreword as "Ye Editor". Mrs. Merritt is credited (anonymously) there and (by name) as the coordinator of a "devoted band" (presumably the Aid Association), and thus is credited here as well. Brockton Hospital is known in the medical community for, among other things, its founding alliance with a teaching school for nurses, which admitted its first students in 1897. Modern incarnations of both institutions, in east-central Brockton, continue to serve the city under the umbrella Signature Medical Group of the South Shore. Parallel, wrappered issue, in black lettered, yellow wrappers. Near fine. [OCLC locates six copies; Bitting, page 524; Cook, page 125; Brown 1357; not in Cagle].