Whilst there is a substantial body of literature on the history of the cookbook, the study of cookbook illustrations has been largely neglected. This thesis examines the role of the illustrator and illustration and how they made important and distinctive contributions in a selection of key illustrated British cookbooks between the years 1939 and 1965. It argues that over these twenty-six years illustration changed significantly to reflect significant social and cultural changes in Britain. It also examines how illustrators used their professional practice to respond to these changes and the methods they used to elevate illustration as a form of textual communication. This study thus addresses the disparity of and the gap in knowledge in this under-researched subject. The Introduction provides a summary of the period under investigation and why it was chosen, followed by the Literature Review and Methodology in Chapter One. Chapter Two goes on to provide an analysis of British cookbooks made through a brief historiography up to and including the interwar period. Chapter Three offers an analysis of illustrated cookbooks and free Ministry of Food cookery leaflets used during the Second World War. Chapter Four’s focus on the cookbooks of Elizabeth David shows how John Minton’s and Renato Guttuso’s illustrations inspired middle-class readers to look beyond David’s cookbooks and expand their culinary horizons through travel and touristic experiences. Through an analysis of the work of Alan Cracknell, David Gentleman and Juliet Renny, Chapter Five explores how illustrators applied techniques that were drawn from their own scholarly experiences where the reader became a culinary scholar. Chapter Six investigates the post-rationing cookbooks of the Stork Margarine Cookery Service and how anonymously authored illustrations were used as marketing devices to appeal to working-class consumers. Chapter Seven examines the cookbooks of writer and illustrator Len Deighton whose predominately male readers were instructed in how to cook using a simplified recipe method called the cookstrip. These chapters reveal how illustration played an important role in the development of the British cookbook and its meaning, and how illustration enhanced and established the reader’s understanding of recipes.
| Date of Award | 16 May 2023 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Awarding Institution | |
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