Two years ago, a friend bought me a book at an auction. “Dear friend, will you accept this little book?” she joked, before handing it to me with a cover like a dried teabag crossed with a stocking, and a dislocated spine that revealed what looked like fishnet underneath. It must be 100 years old, I said as I put on my reading specs. The line drawing of vegetables and letters on the tobacco-coloured cover were faded, and one letter was almost completely erased by a watermark, but nonetheless the title was clear: Leaves from Our Tuscan Kitchen, by Janet Ross. It bloody well was 100 years old!
The cover held 150 manilla-yellow pages; if not a first edition, certainly an early one, and a stupendous gift. “Look at the first page,” my friend said with a laughing eye. I opened the book to find a note written in pencil on the endpaper (the name Mrs Ward and an address I can’t make out except for the postcode SW1), while on the first page was a typed dedication to Mrs GF Watts: “Dear friend, will you accept this little book? It may sometimes bring the thought of Italy into your beautiful Surrey home.”
