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Mrs. Rorer’s Vegetable Cookery and Meat Substitutes (Philadelphia, 1909) Original cloth binding. 328pp.+ads, including several other Rorer titles. Inscribed: “Ambition has no rest. To Mrs. Edward Bok. With compliments of the author. Sarah Tyson Rorer, 1909”. 

An “American pioneer in the field of domestic science”, Sarah Rorer founded the Philadelphia School of Cookery and edited several women’s magazines before she joined the staff of the Ladies Home Journal, then brilliantly edited by Edward Bok, whose wife – the recipient of this book – was daughter of the magazine’s wealthy publisher. As heiress of her father’s multi-million dollar estate, Mrs. Bok became a notable patroness of the arts, founding Philadelphia’s Curtis School of Music. After Bok’s death, she married virtuoso violinist Efrem Zimbalist. Mrs. Bok must have felt a special affinity for the “ambitious” Mrs. Rorer, who published more than 14 books over two decades, including this unusual work written for vegetarians. A notable association copy of two remarkable women in turn-of-the-century America.