The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896) by Fannie Farmer is a 19th-century general reference cookbook which is still available both in reprint and in updated form. It was particularly notable for a more rigorous approach to recipe writing than had been common up to that point.
In the preface Farmer states:
Farmer's 1896 compilation became the best-selling cookbook of the era.[1]
In 2007, that period of American culinary history was recreated in an elaborate dinner using the Victorian cooking methods outlined in this book. The extensive preparations and the ultimate results were described in a book entitled Fannie's Last Supper by Christopher Kimball, and an American public television program of the same name[2] was broadcast in 2010.[1]
When Little, Brown & Company was preparing the first edition of Fannie Farmer's cookbook, they were not confident it would sell well. As such, the first edition, released in 1896, had a limited run of only 3,000 copies.[3] It proved an immediate success.
Facsimiles of the original book are still in print. Heavily revised successor books, later retitled The Fannie Farmer Cookbook, have also been published, the most recent being the thirteenth edition by author Marion Cunningham, originally issued in 1990 and then reissued in 1996 for the 100th anniversary of the original book.
The twelfth and thirteenth editions were published by Knopf Publishing Group.