British "Queen of Cooks", Royal mistress, rare
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Description
Author: Lewis, Rosa
Title: Letter from the British "Queen of Cooks", Mistress of future King Edward VII
Place Published: London
Publisher:
Date Published: 1926
Description:
Cavendish Hotel, London, March 9, 1926. 2pp. To Marian Colvin Deane, White Plains, New York.
"...so delighted you were pleased with my book but it was not really written by me. It was published against my wishes and also without my consent, and is very bad literature. I am writing a book myself, however, and when it is finished I will send you one...If ever you are strong enough to come to England you must come here and I will put you up and look after you. I am so sorry you are ill." Lewis' autograph letters are scarce. We could locate none sold at auction in recent years.
Known to American TV viewers of BBC drama as the "Duchess of Duke Street", Rosa Lewis first became noteworthy as a master chef, hailed as "Queen of Cooks" by Escofffier himself, her meals treasured by the nobility, notably including Queen Victoria's son, the future Edward VII, with whom she reportedly had an affair after her unhappy marriage to a butler. Edward also reportedly helped her buy the Cavendish Hotel, her own royal domain for decades.
Her notoriety spread with 1925 publication of the unauthorized biography she cites in this letter, Mary Lawton's "Queen of Cooks & and Some Kings". Despite her stated writing plans, she herself never published an autobiography before her death in 1952. But three more biographies of her appeared in the 1960s and '70s, when her once scandalous-life was more appreciated by a Go-Go generation. This letter, written to an ailing American stranger, also attests to her personal warmth.
Condition
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