First published in England, this kitchen reference became available to colonial American housewives when it was printed in Williamsburg, Virginia is 1742. Originally published in London in 1727, The Compleat Housewife was the first cookbook printed in the United States. William Parks, a Virginia printer, printed and sold the cookbook believing there would be a strong market for it among Virginia housewives who wanted to keep up with the latest London fashions—the book was a best-seller there. Parks did make some attempt to Americanize it, deleting certain recipes “the ingredients or material for which are not to be had in this country,” but for the most part, the book was not adjusted to American kitchens. Even so, it became the first cookery best seller in the New World, and Parks’s major book publication. Author Eliza Smith described her book on the title page as “Being a collection of several hundred approved receipts, in cookery, pastry, confectionery, preserving, pickles, cakes, creams, jellies, made wines, cordials. And also bills of fare for every month of the year. To which is added, a collection of nearly two hundred family receipts of medicines; viz. drinks, syrups, salves, ointments, and many other things of sovereign and approved efficacy in most distempers, pains, aches, wounds, sores, etc. never before made publick in these parts; fit either for private families, or such public-spirited gentlewomen as would be beneficent to their poor neighbours.” The recipes are easy to understand and cover everything from 50 recipes for pickling everything from nasturtium buds to pigeons to “lifting a swan, breaking a deer, and splating a pike,” indicating the importance of understanding how to prepare English game. The book also includes diagrams for positioning serving dishes to create an attractive table display.

Written for the native people of Massachusetts by John Eliot in 1666, this monumental linguistic work was intended as a basis for teaching the Algonquinian-speaking people to read the Bible, which Eliot had translated into Algonquinian in 1661. This edition contains a facsimile of the original side-by-side with a reset version in modern type.

The papers collected in this volume discuss descriptive methods and present conclusions relevant for the history of the book production and reception. Books printed in Europe in the 15th and 16th century still had much in common with manuscripts. They are not mere textual sources, but also material objects whose physical make-up and individual features need to be taken into account in library projects for cataloguing and digitization.

"Commonplace books" are collections of quotations, anecdotes, proverbs, and various other types of text extracts. They and the theories informing their compilation were the progenitors of reference works that are now quite taken for granted: encyclopedias, concordances, and books of quotations. Commonplace Books is a stand-alone historical survey of manuscript and printed books relating to the complex and extremely influential genre of the commonplace book from classical antiquity to the present day. Comprised of a series of long historical essays followed by short hand-lists of exhibited items, this volume is the first comprehensive, introductory survey to cover the entire commonplace book tradition, from its origin in ancient Greek and Roman rhetorical theory and philosophy, to the end of the 20th century.