Claiming to be the fruit of the personal experiences of at least a thousand housekeepers, the book reprints the contents of the New York Times Sunday edition Household Column, which apparently was extremely popular in its day, and the public clamored for reprints of the column's recipes.

Besides the hundreds of formulas for cooking breakfast dishes, eggs, fish, oysters, soups, meats, vegetables, pastry, cakes, breads, and more, the book includes considerable supplementary matter such as a complete treatise on carving, illustrated with woodcuts.

Providing advice on everything from food marketing and storage to setting tables and serving wine, the Times asserts that every counsel is the outgrowth of experiment and success, and the suggestions offered can be acted upon with certainty that good results will follow.

This edition of The Times' Recipes was reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas, a Revolutionary War patriot and successful printer and publisher, the Society is a research library documenting the life of Americans from the colonial era through 1876.

The Society collects, preserves, and makes available as complete a record as possible of the printed materials from the early American experience. The cookbook collection includes approximately 1,100 volumes.