It is not yet quite ten years since the publication of “COMMON
SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD. GENERAL RECEIPTS.” In offering the work to
the publishers, under whose able management it has prospered so
wonderfully, I said: “I have written this because I felt that such
a Manual of Practical Housewifery is needed.” That I judged aright,
taking my own experience as a housekeeper as the criterion of the wants
and perplexities of others, is abundantly proved by the circumstance
which calls for this new and revised edition of the book. Through
much and constant use—nearly 100,000 copies having been printed from
them—the stereotype plates have become so worn that the impressions
are faint and sometimes illegible. I gladly avail myself of the
opportunity thus offered to re-read and so far to alter the original
volume as may, in the light of later improvements in the culinary art
and in my understanding of it, make the collection of family receipts
more intelligible and available. Nor have I been able to resist the
temptation to interpolate a few excellent receipts that have come into
my hands at a later period than that of the publication of the last,
and in my estimation, perhaps the most valuable of the “Common Sense
Series,” viz.: “THE DINNER YEAR-BOOK.”
I am grateful, also, to the courtesy of my publishers for the privilege
of thanking those to whom this book was, and is dedicated, “My
fellow-housekeepers—North, East, South and West”—for their substantial
endorsement of the work I have done in their behalf. A collection
of the private letters I have received from those who have used the
“General Receipts” would make a volume very nearly as large as this.
If I have, as the writers of these testimonials assure me—“done them
good,”—they have done me more in letting me know that I have not spent
my strength for naught. I acknowledge with pleasure sundry pertinent
suggestions and inquiries which have led me, in this revision, to
examine warily the phraseology of some receipts and to modify these,
I believe, for the better. But, by far, the best “good” done me
through this work has been the conscious sisterhood into which I have
come with the great body of American housewives. This is a benefit
not to be rated by dollars and cents, or measured by time. I hope my
fellow-workers will find their old kitchen-companion, in fresh dress,
yet more serviceable than before, and that their daughters may, at
the close of a second decade, demand new stereotype plates for still
another, and, like this, a progressive edition.