The Women's Suffrage Cookery Book

London: Women's Printing Society, 1909. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. One of the better-known British suffrage cookbooks, assembled by the Birmingham chapter of the National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies (NUWSS) as a fundraiser. Suffragists from around the United Kingdom submitted recipes. The final section includes "Menus for Meals for Suffrage Workers" offered as "an attempt to cope with the difficulty." There is also a "recipe for cooking and preserving a good suffrage speaker" contributed by Mrs. Bertrand Russell, who offers advice including, "Grease the dish by paying all the speaker's expenses."

The book went through several editions (see below), all undated. Publication is often cited as 1912 (e.g. OCLC 1162496657 and the British library). However, the book was announced in the November 18, 1909 issue of the periodical The Common Cause, where it is described as "containing 230 cookery and still-room recipes by Suffragists... The recipes are good, and some of them distinctly original. The proceeds of the sale are to go to the National Union" (p. 422).

77, [blank] pages, with a true endpaper at the front of the book and the final leaf (E8) used as the pastedown at the end. There are two different cover designs for the book, one with two children standing below a tree (this example) and one with three adult figures and a small child. The tree cover is known with a red cloth spine (this example) and with green. Libraries have cataloged copies as 77, [1] pages (this example) and 77, [3] pages. How the pagination fits with the covers is not known to this cataloguer. Which variant is the first is also hard to say.

However, the present copy includes a 4-5/16 by 6-13/16 inch flier for the book announcing that "copies of this are now ready." The flier gives instructions for ordering copies directly from the compiler or from a Miss E. M. Gardner, in Birmingham. Most of the text of the Common Cause announcement matches this flier. If the book and the flier have been together for a long time, that would argue that this binding (red cloth, tree design, 77, [1] pages) is the first or an early variant.

The book has some old spotting to the top edge and fading to the spine, generally an about very good copy of a book often found well worn. The flier has a small hole, perhaps from a public posting, but is otherwise fine.