8vo (191 x 127 mm). Half-title; 4pp. publisher's ads at end. (Light spotting throughout.) Original gilt-lettered brown cloth, top edge gilt (spine lightly sunned, light wear to spine ends, few tiny spots of discoloration to upper cover). Provenance: Epes Ellery, San Francisco (booksellers' ticket).

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of one of the most celebrated works in the literature of gastronomy. Written over many years and published shortly before the author’s death, The Physiology of Taste is "one of the most witty discussions on food ever written… The work is filled with entertaining anecdotes and commentary on good eating, including several pages of impressions about the United States" (Feret). The work is also the source of the famous maxim “Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are,” which gave rise to the modern phrase “You are what you eat.”

SOLD BY SAN FRANCISCO’S FIRST ANTIQUARIAN BOOKSELLER with his bookseller's ticket. Ellery, together with Augustus Doyle, established the Montgomery Street shop, then the commercial center, in 1854. Operating during the height of the California Gold Rush, Ellery supplied books to miners, merchants, and the expanding professional class of the city. Bitting, 60; Cagle & Stafford 103; Feret, 38; Lowenstein 639; Reid, 75.