THE HOUSE SERVANT'S DIRECTORY, OR A MONITOR FOR PRIVATE FAMILIES: COMPRISING HINTS ON THE ARRANGEMENT AND PERFORMANCE OF SERVANTS' WORK, WITH GENERAL RULES FOR SETTING OUT TABLES AND SIDEBOARDS IN FIRST ORDER; THE ART OF WAITING IN ALL ITS BRANCHES; AND LIKEWISE HOW TO CONDUCT LARGE AND SMALL PARTIES WITH ORDER; WITH GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR PLACING ON TABLE ALL KINDS OF JOINTS, FISH, FOWL, &C. WITH FULL INSTRUCTIONS FOR CLEANING PLATE, BRASS, STEEL, GLASS, MAHOGANY; AND LIKEWISE ALL KINDS OF PATENT AND COMMON LAMPS: OBSERVATIONS ON SERVANTS' BEHAVIOUR TO THEIR EMPLOYERS; AND UPWARDS OF 100 VARIOUS AND USEFUL RECEIPTS, CHIEFLY COMPILED FOR THE USE OF HOUSE SERVANTS; AND IDENTICALLY MADE TO SUIT THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF FAMILIES IN THE UNITED STATES WITH FRIENDLY ADVICE TO COOKS AND HEADS OF FAMILIES; AND COMPLETE DIRECTIONS HOW TO BURN LEHIGH COAL by ROBERTS, Robert - 1827

Boston & New York: Munroe and Francis; Charles S. Francis, 1827. First Edition. Hardcover. Owner name of Katherine Laurence dated 27 March 1827 on the front endpaper. Two leaves (pages 73-76) neatly detached and laid in; contents complete and very clean with occasional toning. Some fraying along the spine edge. An excellent example of a very scarce and important title. Duodecimo (4-3/4" x 7-1/2") bound in contemporary, possibly for the publisher, linen-backed marbled boards with an intact printed paper label spine; 180 pages. A rare example of the FIRST COMMERCIALLY PUBLISHED BOOK WRITTEN BY AN AFRICAN AMERICAN IN THE UNITED STATES and THE FIRST COOKBOOK WRITTEN BY AN AFRICAN-AMERICAN. A guide for house servants to help them to understand the rules of keeping a prominent white household, it includes recipes and advice to black servants on how to properly clean plates, what to wear, what time to arise for work, how to deal with drunk people, how to restore furniture, and how to take care of themselves. More household-management manual than cookbook, Roberts gives suggestions for employers on how to manage domestic help (very unusual for the time), but he was more interested in teaching young black men how to succeed in their work and ensure their advancement. Roberts begins the book: "In order to get through your work in proper time, you should make it your chief study to rise early in the morning; for an hour before the family rises is worth more to you than two after they are up." The author was a butler at the country estate of U.S. senator and governor of Massachusetts, Christopher Gore, a friend of Daniel Webster's.

BLOCKSON COLLECTION, 9537 (1969 reprint); LONGONE CATALOGUE, page 2: "Although only two other editions of Roberts's book are recorded, some historians think that this work was seminal in producing men of singular ability as caterers, and managers -- rather than servants -- of large households"; Lowenstein, AMERICAN COOKERY BOOKS, 107; Weinstein, AGAINST THE TIDE 57: "Roberts also published the only substantial work by an abolitionist, black or white, to contain neither hint nor trace of race"; not in WORK.