Maggs Bros.

Very good, head and tail of spine with some loss, spine slightly darkened, coloured pencil gift inscription to half-title, but otherwise bright and clean.

An early English translation, and probably the first to be published in England, of Brillat-Savarin’s epochal treatise on dining, the Physiologie Du Goût. One of the most influential texts in the history of gastronomy, the Physiologie defies the cataloguer’s attempt to provide a concise summary; it is enough simply to repeat Brillat-Savrin’s maxim: ‘animals feed; man eats; the man of intellect alone knows how to eat.’

Although Simpson’s rather enthusiastic abridgement of the original text causes his translation to stray, his earnest desire to improve the lot of his fellow countrymen is thoroughly charming. ‘It is a melancholy fact that London does not know “HOW TO DINE!”… It is precisely on this account that I wish to improve their dinners, they eat too much, and they drink too much, which is worse; and their dinners are montonous. They want Reform! But here is my Reform Bill’.