Martha Lloyd’s Household Book

The Original Manuscript from Jane Austen’s Kitchen

Martha Lloyd

Martha Lloyd’s Household Book

Martha Lloyd

Distributed for Bodleian Library, University of Oxford

Introduced with Annotated Transcription by Julienne Gehrer
With a Foreword by Deirdre Le Faye

312 pages | 85 color plates | 6 3/4 x 8 3/4
Cloth $45.00 ISBN: 9781851245604 Published July 2021 For sale in North America only
Peek through the kitchen window to experience day-to-day life at Chawton Cottage, the home where Jane Austen wrote and published her famous novels.

Martha Lloyd first befriended a young Jane Austen in 1789 and later lived with Jane, her sister Cassandra, and their mother at the cottage in Chawton, Hampshire, where Jane wrote and revised her novels. Eventually, Martha married Jane’s brother Francis Austen, making her an authority on day-to-day life in the Austen family.

Martha Lloyd’s Household Book is a remarkable artifact, a manuscript cookbook featuring recipes and remedies handwritten over thirty years. Austen fans will spot the many connections between Martha’s book and Jane Austen’s writing, including dishes such as white soup from Pride and Prejudice. Readers will also learn the author’s favorite foods, such as toasted cheese and mead. The family, culinary, and literary connections detailed in the introductory chapters of this work give a fascinating perspective on the time and manner in which both women lived.

Passed down through the Austen family, the Household Book offers unprecedented access into the family home. In this first facsimile publication, Martha’s notebook is reproduced in color, accompanied by a complete transcription and detailed annotations.
Contents
Contents

foreword Deirdre Le Faye vii
preface xii
Martha Lloyd in her own light 1
Martha’s household book in historical context 31
Unique details of Martha’s book 42
Making connections to Jane Austen 56
Martha Lloyd’s Household Book 67
Reader’s guide & annotated transcription 69
glossary 150
notes 157
bibliography 163
picture credits 166
index 167
Review Quotes
The Guardian
"Lloyd's handwritten book, in all its blotched and crumbling glory, is to be published in a colour facsimile for the first time, giving readers a new glimpse into Austen's home life."
Southern Living
“Now, centuries later, Austen lovers can cook the same recipes Jane enjoyed while writing her incredible works.”
Mental Floss
“Lloyd’s household book, which she wrote over three decades, offers fascinating insight into what life was like at Chawton House.”
Gastro Obscura
“Austen lovers can read and cook from the same recipes Jane once enjoyed. . . . The new edition contains a full facsimile original manuscript, with a deep-brown sheep parchment cover and yellowing pages covered in Martha Lloyd’s loopy handwriting, as well as Gehrer’s painstaking transcription of the entire contents.”
Jane Austen’s Regency World
“This is a glorious book–a work of art to read and read again.”
LitHub
“Martha Lloyd’s Household Book is one of the few items we have from Jane Austen’s closest friend… Included as a natural preface… is an extensive biography of Martha Lloyd.”
Digestible Bits & Bites, Culinary Historians of Canada
“It’s perhaps surprising that no one has published a scholarly version of this little book before. But we may be glad it waited for the loving eye of Ms. Gehrer, because she has done it perfectly, and produced both a new resource for those who want to know everything about Jane Austen’s life and times, and a very practical introduction to hands-on Georgian cookery.”
For more information, or to order this book, please visit https://press.uchicago.edu
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