When originally published in 1912, Fannie Farmer said in her preface: "With the advancement of the art of cookery, it has become impossible to compress within the limits of a single volume the wealth of material which is at hand. It is now seventeen years since The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book was first published. Since that time it has been frequently revised and a large number of new recipes added... But the results of the labors and experiments of the last seven years have, I believe, justified the publication of an entirely new work. It will be understood that this new work is in no sense a substitute for my earlier one, but rather a sequel. It is, let me repeat, a comprehensive survey of the progress of the last few years and contains recipes economical and simple as well as expensive and elaborate, covering the whole range of cookery." This book contains about 860 recipes and numerous illustrations. Fannie Merritt Farmer (1857-1915) was an American authority on cookery, born in Boston. She received her early education in Medford, Massachusetts, and graduated from the Boston Cooking School, of which she was a director from 1892 to 1902. In the latter year she founded Miss Farmer's School of Cookery, Boston, with the purpose of instructing housewives and nurses in the art of cookery, rather than training prospective domestic science teachers. She edited The Boston Cooking School Cook Book (1896); 21 editions were published before her death. Out of this grew the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, still being published.