The Cooking Manual; or, Practical Directions for Economical Every Day Cookery. By Juliet Corson, Superintendent of the New York Cooking School. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. Pp. 144. Price, 50 cents.
Miss Corson has done well to give the public this result of her experience in culinary teaching, in a form so cheap that it may have the widest possible usefulness. She is a common-sense woman, and takes up the subject from a point of view that is thoroughly practical. The motto of her book is the following significant question, "How well can we live if we are moderately poor?" and it is the object of her little volume, as it has been the object of her school, so to present the subject of cooking and household management as to answer this question. Her object in preparing it is thus stated: "This book is intended for the use of those housekeepers and cooks who wish to know how to make the most wholesome and palatable dishes, at the least possible cost. In cookery, this fact should be remembered above all others—a good cook never wastes. It is her pride to make the most of everything in the shape of food intrusted to her care, and her pleasure to serve it in the most appetizing form. In no other way can she prove her excellence, for poor cooks are always wasteful and extravagant." To the prejudice against foreign ways of cooking Miss Corson replies very effectually, pointing out that the two great objects to be ever secured in the kitchen—the art of utilizing every part of food, and of making food the most palatable and enjoyable—are eminently French.
Miss Corson says, "The day has passed for regarding cooking as a menial and vulgar labor." She is very sanguine; we wish we could believe it. We wish we could see some more decisive signs that it is passing away; we wish we could see some faint indications that it will have passed away in a hundred years! Our school system stands in the way of it, and where are the symptoms of its decline?
Miss Corson's book is full of excellent information, scientific hints, practical suggestions, and plain receipts, descriptive of the preparation of many important dishes, and the publishers have got it up. in a neat form, with good, clear type, that can be easily read. We believe it will be found eminently trustworthy as a kitchen handbook.
The Best Reading: Hints on the Selection of Books; on the Formation of Libraries, Public and Private; on Courses of Reading, etc., with a Classified Bibliography for Easy Reference. Fourth revised and enlarged edition, continued to August, 1876, with the Addition of Select Lists of the best French, German, Spanish, and Italian Literature. Edited by Frederick Beecher Perkins. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 343. Price, $1.75.
This guide will be valuable to all who buy books for private libraries or public collections. It has been tried and found successful. It names the best books now usually in the market in the chief departments, and on the leading topics of current and general literature, with their editions and retail prices. It is conveniently arranged for ready use, and will give the book buyer a large amount of valuable information, that will help him in making judicious selections, either on the small or the large scale.
The Milton Anthology: Selected from the Prose Writings. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 486. Price, $2.
Milton's prose works have been so eclipsed by his poetry that they are popularly known only by hearsay; yet so great is their merit, both in a literary point of view and as containing the most able and eloquent defense of civil and religious liberty which had been given to the world up to his time, that the plan of collecting some of his best papers in a handy volume like this deserves to be commended, and will no doubt be well appreciated. Though there is much in these writings that reflects the spirit and circumstances of the times which produced them, there is much also of permanent interest, and which will have an enduring place in English literature.
The Geometrid Moths of the United States. By A. S. Packard, Jr., M. D. Pp. 607. With numerous Plates. Washington: Government Printing-Office.
This elaborate work forms Volume X. of Dr. Hayden's "Report of the Geological Survey of the Territories." The author
