Thirteen Years, Fifty-Four Issues
We have tried to keep things findable. Below: the last several years, in reverse order, each with a line or two about what the editor remembers of it. The earliest issues (I through VI) survive only as typewritten foolscap in a cabinet the niece is slowly persuading him to let her scan.
The current issue. Leads with the title essay; also: the second-kettle piece, a week of field notes from the cottage, the napkin diagrams, and Mrs. Eldon's damsons.
Columns: Jeaves Replies (four letters) · The Larder (damsons, and a brown-butter loaf) · Of Houses (a boatbuilder's kitchen) · The Rule Book (seven new entries).
The issue that arrived during a rather uncompromising August. Includes the long piece on shutters — specifically the louvred kind, closed at ten and opened at dusk — and a short one, much reprinted by readers, on iced tea that is actually cold.
Written after the editor had, in one season, attended four. Contains the rule about never offering an opinion on a dress, a defense of the handwritten note that arrives three weeks late, and a short glossary for those unfamiliar with the receiving line.
On soups (three, including a parsnip that surprised him), on lamplight, on how to be alone in a house without being lonely in it. Many readers have written to say this was their favorite. The editor does not disagree.
The tenth issue, and therefore a small anniversary. Includes a conversation with Margery Finch, an orchardist in the next valley, about the fourteen varieties she grows and the three she would not be without (Ashmead's Kernel, Court Pendu Plat, and a russet she simply calls "the one by the wall").
The essay readers most often send to their newly married friends. The editor has not told them to stop. Contains the three-hour rule, the clean-towel rule, and the rule about the second pot of coffee.
A whole issue on mending — clothes, friendships, a chipped teapot, a misread silence. The editor is fond of this one, though he admits the metaphor strains in one place (the bit about the sock, he will tell you, was a mistake).
Longer than the title suggests. Worth it, we are told. Includes a side-by-side on linen versus cotton, and a brief appreciation of the glass-cloth, which the editor considers underrated.
On breakfast laid out for guests who rise at different hours; on the small grace of warm plates. Exists only as typewritten copy; a reader has offered to retype it, which the editor is thinking about.
On inheriting a garden — a small essay about the cottage beds, which had been kept by the previous tenant for thirty years and which the editor has tried not to improve.
An unusually practical issue: how to count, mark, and mend household linens, with a diagram (reproduced from memory) of Halliwell's cabinet at Ashgrove, which held 214 pieces and never once lost a pillowslip.
A note: earlier issues (I through III) exist only in typewritten form, and are held in a cabinet the editor's niece is slowly persuading him to let her scan. Readers who ask, through a mutual reader, are sometimes sent a photocopy on foolscap — folded once, posted flat.