“ANYONE CAN COOK IN THE FRENCH MANNER ANYWHERE, WITH THE RIGHT INSTRUCTION”: FIRST EDITION OF MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING, SIGNED BY JULIA CHILD IN VOLUME II, IN SCARCE ORIGINAL DUST JACKETS
CHILD, Julia, BECK, Simone, and BERTHOLLE, Louisette. Mastering the Art of French Cooking. WITH: Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume Two. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1961, 1970. Quarto, original patterned white cloth, original dust jackets.
First editions of Julia Child’s two-volume indispensable first cookbook, the work that brought French food to the American home kitchen, signed by her on the title page of Volume II.
Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking remains arguably the most influential work on French food ever published in the United States, and Child herself was undoubtedly French cuisine’s most enthusiastic and successful ambassador. She was the girl from Pasadena who revolutionized American cooking with her irrepressible humor, genial expertise, and her signature phrase, “Bon Appétit!” Winner of three Emmys, the Peabody Award, the National Book Award, and the French Légion d’Honneur, she was the first woman ever inducted into the Culinary Institute of America’s Hall of Fame and her kitchen has been installed in the Smithsonian. A “self-confessed ham, she became a darling of audiences…. almost from the moment she made her debut in 1963 at the age of 50” (New York Times).
Books fine; slight edge-wear, shallow chipping, faint soiling, toning to spines of extremely good dust jackets. A highly desirable set, scarce signed.