"These essays are noble relics indeed, and Jekyll has the puff-pastry touch."—BookForum


“Three cheers to Persephone Books for publishing this witty, sharp writer, nostalgic but unsentimental, humorous but precise, erudite and always elegant.”—Country Living


“Kitchen Essays is a rare thing, a cookbook that is as fun to read as its food is to eat.”—Sunday Herald (Glasgow)


“[An] exquisitely reprinted period piece.”—BBC Good Food magazine


First published in The Times (London) during the 1920s, Kitchen Essays explains the proper way to make Lobster Newburg while offering fascinating insight into the social history of England.


Agnes Jekyll felt that cooking should fit the occasion and temperament and states that “a large crayfish or lobster rearing itself menacingly on its tail seems quite at home on a sideboard of a Brighton hotel-de-luxe, but will intimidate a shy guest at a small dinner-party.” And that “a hardy sportsman should not be fed in the same way as a depressed financier.”


Agnes Jekyll (1860–1937) was the daughter of William Graham, Liberal MP for Glasgow and patron of the Pre-Raphaelites. A celebrated hostess and entertainer, her first dinner party included Robert Browning, John Ruskin, and Edward Burne-Jones. She lived in Surrey, England.