Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. He may have been right. I do not know nor do I care whether his judgment or mine was the better. I gave my first cook-book to you because I knew from my own experience, as a young, raw and untaught housekeeper, that you needed just what I had to say. The hundreds of thousands of copies which have been sold, the thousands of grateful letters received from my toiling sisters, testify to that need and that to me was appointed the gracious task of supplying it.