(California) Clayton, H.J. Clayton's Quaker Cook-Book: Being a Practical Treatise on the Culinary Art Adapted to the Tastes and Wants of All Classes

xv, [1], 104 pp. Illus. with original photograph of the author mounted to page facing title, with author's original signature below. 7.75x5.25", gilt-lettered pebbled purple cloth. First Edition. San Francisco: Women's Co-Operative Printing Office, 1883.

The last 24 pages are ads for San Francisco businesses including a full-page ad for the Women's Co-Operative Printing Office. In his important 1883 cookbook, H.J. Clayton shares the recipes and techniques he learned growing up in a farm kitchen. This was the first California book that payed homage to locally grown, farm fresh ingredients. Included are recipes for Clayton's mode of cooking California quail or young chickens; "To cook a steak California style, 1849-50," and Clayton's California Golden coffee. He even includes one cocktail, a Roman Punch, using California brandy.

The book is also the product of one of San Francisco's earliest women-run print shops. In 1868 Agnes Peterson founded the Women's Co-Operative Printing Union (WCPU), it was later taken over and run by Lizzie G. Richmond, who relocated printing operations permanently to Montgomery Street. The WCPU was an extremely important marker in the history of women printers as it was operated by women and staffed primarily with women. 

Discoloration from dampstaining to front cover, rubbing to spine ends & corners; 3" closed tear to upper half of frontis. page (not affecting photograph or signature), still about very good. One of only four copies found in U.S. libraries. Bitting p.91, Brown p.3,