T wo years ago, a friend bought me a book at an auction. “Dear friend, will you accept this little book?” she joked, before handing it to me with a cover like a dried teabag crossed with a stocking, and a dislocated spine that revealed what looked like fishnet underneath. It must be 100 years old, I said as I put on my reading specs.
The line drawing of vegetables and letters on the tobacco-coloured cover were faded, and one letter was almost completely erased by a watermark, but nonetheless the title was clear: Leaves from Our Tuscan Kitchen, by Janet Ross. It bloody well was 100 years old! The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link.
Learn more. The cover held 150 manilla-yellow pages; if not a first edition, certainly an early one, and a stupendous gift. “Look at the first page,” my friend said with a laughing eye.
I opened the book to find a note written in pencil on the endpaper (the name Mrs Ward and an address I can’t make out except for the postcode SW1), while on the first page was a typed dedication to Mrs GF Watts: “Dear friend, will you accept this little book? It may sometimes bring the thought of Italy into your beautiful Surrey home.” Ross was an English writer, historian and biographer. Born in 1842, she lived in Egypt as a young woman, where she (may have) worked as a correspondent for the Times.
Then, in 1969, almost by happenstance and apparently motivated by money, Ross .