The Pentucket Housewife: A Manual for Housekeepers and Collection of Recipes. Contributed by The Ladies of the First Baptist Church, Haverhill, Mass. [Edited by C. W. Train.]

Haverhill, Mass: [The Church; Printed by] Steam Press of Chase Bros, 1883. Octavo (22 x 15 cm.), [viii], 136, [xvii] pages. Advertisements (some illustrated). Decorated chapter head- and tailpieces. Table of contents. List of corrections. Editor inferred from copyright statement on title-page verso. ~ Evident FIRST EDITION; while copyrighted the prior year, the author's preface is dated December 1882. A church cookbook likely issued in concert with the dedication of a new meetinghouse. With approximately five hundred recipes, many of them attributed. Representative entries: Bean Porridge, Oyster Stew, Shaker Codfish, Chicken Curry with Rice, Potted Pigeons, Cannelon of Beef, Baked Tomatoes, Parsnips, Stewed Celery, Brown Bread (five versions), Corn Cake (four versions), Squash Breakfast Cakes, Sweet Apple Pancakes, Fried Bananas, Grandmother's Pumpkin Pie, Lemon Pie (four versions), Indian Pudding (five versions), Peach Pudding, Rhubarb Dumplings, Charlotte Russe (three versions), Strawberry Custard, Union Cake, Election Cake, Hard Gingerbread (five versions), Preserved Grapes, Barberry Jelly, Quince Marmalade. Appended are laundry recipes and household hints ("The squeaking of boots may be prevented by driving a few pegs in the middle of the sole"). ~ Some spot-staining and age-toning. In publisher's chestnut cloth, lettered in gilt; discoloring especially to the bottom of the front cover; corners bumped; wear to the top and bottom of the spine. Owner's note ("From H. C. Jewett, 1883" – possibly the physician Howard Clifton Jewett [1858-1931]) on front free endpaper. Several handwritten annotations in pencil. Better than good. Scarce. [OCLC locates seven copies (and ten copies of the 1882 edition); Cook, page 108; edition not in Bitting or Brown; not in Cagle].