COOKERY CLASSES

(London: Peter Owen Ltd 1955). First UK Edition. SIGNED & INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR IN THE YEAR OF PUBLICATION. 336 pp. Publisher's blue cloth boards with gilt lettering to the spine. Spine tips bruised. Light bruising to top leading corners of boards. Boards bright and clean. No inscriptions. No markings. Coloured frontispiece and 4 B&W plates. Inscribed by the Author to the half-title page: "To Miss Angela Kay/ My sincere gratitude/ for all the help/ given in/ writing this Book./ Jean Conil/ June - 1955". The yellow and purple dustwrapper is priced 21s net to the inside flap and is complete with a slither of loss at the spine tips. partial browning to the rear panel, a darkened spine and with a closed tear to the top right-hand corner of the rear panel. A VG copy in like dustwrapper. Uncommon signed. Jean Conil (1918-2003) was well known in his adopted country as the man who (like his contemporary Elizabeth David) regarded the imaginatively-impoverished state of British cuisine post WW2 as a "national tragedy". A prominent chef and restauranteur (The Savoy Hotel, The Caprice, Fortnum & Mason), Caterer (the Coronation of Elizabeth II), Journalist and TV Personality. Photographs/scans available upon request.…