Hand-book of the National Training-School for Cookery, South Kensington, London. To which is added the Principles of Diet in Health and Disease, by Thomas K. Chambers, M. D. Edited by Eliza A. Youmans. In one vol., 12mo, 382 pages bound in cloth. Price, $1.50.

This is an important work for such American housekeepers as are interested in the principles of good cookery; but it differs so much from ordinary cookbooks that, to prevent misunderstanding, it is needful to call attention to its special features. Emanating from a school, and that school a working kitchen, the manual is beyond comparison the most thoroughly practical cook-book for general use that has ever been made.

The novelty and merit of the work are in the method by which it secures successful practice. Its lessons, the plainest, easiest, and fullest, anywhere to be found, have grown out of a long and painstaking experience in finding out the best plan of teaching beginners and ignorant persons how to cook well. They were perfected through the stupidities, blunders, mistakes, questionings, and difficulties, of hundreds of pupils, of all ages, grades, and capacities, under the careful direction of intelligent, practical teachers.

A cook-book's highest test is, Does it actually teach the art of cookery, or will it make good practical cooks? Thus judged, this volume is without a rival. It is not a mere compilation, nor the work of any one person. The managers of the training-school found that there was no cook-book suitable for their purposes, and that they must make one. The proof of its success is that, by following its simple directions, many hundred women have become qualified to fill responsible situations as cooks, or to instruct their daughters or servants in cookery, or to go out and establish other cooking-schools themselves.

Ordinary cook-books boast of the rarity, novelty, or great extent, of their receipts. The "Lessons in Cookery" makes no claim of this kind. Those who look in it for the last touches in oysters, terrapin, cake, or ice-cream, will be disappointed. There are thousands of English receipts that will not be found in it, and, of course, it does not treat of the dishes that are special to this country. The receipts of the work are lessons in practice, and these occupy so much space that a great multitude could not be furnished.

The volume, however, covers sufficient ground for a liberal and varied diet. It contains upward of 200 lessons in the preparation of a wide range of dishes-soups, fish, meats, poultry, game, vegetables, entrees, souffles, puddings, jellies, creams, rolls, biscuit, bread, and a variety of suitable dishes for the sick. The wants of well-to-do families as well as those of more moderate means are thus amply provided for.

The chief advantage of the book consists in its efficient method of improving the quality of common cookery. In this respect it is strong where other books are defective. It will be useful in cooking-schools, cooking-classes, and cock-ing-clubs; but it will be still more useful in private kitchens. Many American women know how to cook well, but they are not so successful in teaching what they know to others. By the aid of these simple lessons they may turn their kitchens into little domestic cooking-schools, and thus elevate an important branch of household economy, now too much neglected.

D. Appleton & CO., 549 & 551 Broadway, New York,