OUR HOME CYCLOPEDIA. Cookery and Housekeeping.
The Mercantile Publishing Co.: Detroit, 1889. Item #98-2862
Illustr, 8.5 x 6, cream-colored cloth with black lettering and decorated with gilt "veins." 400 pp. Covers extremely well worn, rubbed, stained, soiled, etc., front cover almost detached from text block, rubbed, stained, soiled, etc., front cover almost detached from text block, rear inner hinge cracked, free front endpaper through title page detached, text block cracked, loose pages/signatures, soiling, toning, small tears, light creasing, spotting, pencil check marks, page 239/240 lacking (near the end of the meat chapter). Some of the recipe names: Cottage Beer, Tomato Sweetbreads, Onion Ormoloo, Pig’s Foot Cheese, Railroad Cake, Pumpkin Marmalade and Rhubarb Wine. Edgar S. Darling, whom NUC lists as the author (his name isn’t listed in the book) was a Detroit book publisher. He and his brother, Elmer E., owned the book publishing firm of Darling Brothers and also the Mercantile Publishing Company. According to the Northwest Reporter of 1896, Edgar and Elmer were defendants in a court case. The brothers were deeply in debt to a bank which was refusing to give them any more money without additional security. Edgar approached his wife and told her he needed her to get a mortgage on her separate property so that he could obtain money to put into the business. She got a mortgage and then found out that he used it to pay off his and his brother’s bank debt; none was used for the business. She took him to court and won plus Edgar had to pay court costs. There was no further information as to whether he reimbursed his wife but in the 1896 Detroit city directory, his listing read "removed to New York." Another part of this book’s history is an attached note "From Aunt Tom Lenhardt’s Home, Clarksville, MI." Enclosed is a 1932 bill from the National Grocer Co, for M.P. Lenhard(t). M.P. Lenhard(t) was a farmer and an owner of a large mercantile business in Clarksville, where he was well known in the community. Also enclosed is stationery from a Clarksville business, C.E. Scoville, Live Stock and Farm Property and the Worden Grocer Company of Kalamazoo; both items have recipes written on them. There is also a receipt from a Ford dealership in Ionia (Ionia is in Ionia County as is Clarksville), dated 1932, for a service call on a "Hupp," unrelated notes on the reverse. Various handwritten recipes written on scraps of paper tucked inside the book. This is a physical copy, not a facsimile or a print on demand. Scarce Detroit imprint and overall scarce book. FIRST ED. Sold as is.
Price: $150.00