The details of Mary Holland’s life are not available, but we do know that The Modern Family Receipt Book was her second book after The Complete Economical Cook and Frugal Housewife: An Entirely New System, published in London in the early nineteenth century. Both books were very successful in England, and as a result, American publisher R. Desilver of Philadelphia brought out an American edition of Modern Family Receipts. There is no indication that the contents were modified for life in the New World.

This edition of The Modern Family Receipt Book was reproduced by permission from the volume in the collection of the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. Founded in 1812 by Isaiah Thomas, a Revolutionary War patriot and successful printer and publisher, the society is a research library documenting the lives of Americans from the colonial era through 1876. The society collects, preserves, and makes available as complete a record as possible of the printed materials from the early American experience. The cookbook collection comprises approximately 1,100 volumes