The Handbook for Housekeepers: Practical and Well Tested Receipts. Compiled by The Ladies' Aid Society of the Newton M. E. Church

Boston: B. Wilkins & Co., Printers, 1889. Octavo (19.5 x 13.25 cm.), 64, [ii] pages. Advertisements. Title on cover: Housekeeper's Hand Book. Index is actually a table of contents. FIRST EDITION. A church recipe collection with two hundred brief entries, all attributed. A straightforward chapter of standards called Fancy Dishes claims center stage: Charlotte Russe, Strawberry Blanc-Mange, Orange Pudding, Lemon Creams, Jellied Peaches. Shortly after the organization of the first Methodist Episcopal congregation in what is now Newton Upper Falls, a private home was purchased by a benefactor and transferred - in 1836 - to the trustees of the First Methodist Episcopal Society of Newton for use as a place of worship. In 1889 the congregants would have celebrated a semi-centenary, but in the event the purpose for the fundraiser has not, as of this writing, been discovered, nor is the later disposition of that first church recorded. Several miles west of Boston, Newton is a decentralized city made up of thirteen villages, seven of which saw the establishment of Methodist Episcopal Churches either before or soon after the Civil War. An echo of their stately façades fades in old photographs; to the extent that there are descendent congregations, they converge in a functionalist space as the United Methodist Church of Newton. An edgeworn, but sound text block. Some edge staining and rubbing; corners bumped, and several stained or chipped. Stapled in now faded red paper wrappers with black lettering, separated at the back, with an amateur tape repair to spine. Good only. Scarce. [OCLC retains a floating bibliographic record for one copy, the link to its inputting agency severed; in neither Cook, Brown, nor Cagle].