THE BOOK OF BREAD
London: Maclaren & Sons, circa 1920. Hardcover. Second edition of the comprehensive book on bread-making, with 10 photographs mounted on card, including two silver-gelatin prints, as well as 12 full-page color illustrations and 5 black-and-white illustrations. Quarto: 336 pp. Original green cloth binding, with gilt and black-stamped titling, and black-stamped ornamental borders. The text block has been expertly recased in the original cloth binding, with renewed endpapers. Tiny bit of creasing to the inner bottom corner of a few of the mounted plates. Minor spotting to the preliminary leaves, with mild browning to the half-title. Some general shelfwear to the boards, with some toning along the extremities. Bitting 435.
"The Book of Bread is one of those rare books that can be judged by its cover, or rather, by its name...A monograph about the manufacture of bread, it is the bread-maker's bread book, illustrated with photographs, about which Simmons - evidently a man who did not hold with false modesty - writes: 'However critical readers might be, they will be forced to admit that never before have they seen such a complete collection of prize loaves illustrated in such an excellent manner.' The photographic reproductions - as opposed to the ten original silver-gelatin prints pasted in the book - Simmons continues, were produced, with no expense spared, after various trials using different processes, especially for the colour illustrations: 'The loaves are now reproduced photographically correct, of exactly full size, and the colours are as nearly perfect as it is possible for them to be by any process at present known.' Simmons might be a little over confident about reproduction. The late Sam Wagstaff, who amassed one of the finest photographic collections of the 20th century, once said that there was a photographer for everything - someone who was the best at photographing shoes, or clouds, or mountains. Simmons evidently found the best photographer of bread, though sadly, he failed to credit him. The 19th-century photobook was primarily an archive in which the things of the world were stored and catalogued. Here, at the beginning of the 20th century, one of the humblest, yet most essential of objects is catalogued as precisely, rigorously and objectively as any work by a 1980s Conceptual artist" (Parr & Badger I:56). The final page of the publisher's advertisements lists The Book of Bread, "2nd edition", as being available, as well as some other titles from the "All About" series published in the late 1910s and early '20s. Good. Item #80513
Price: $1,000.00