| Jane Grigson Library
When the educational charity in memory to Jane
Grigson was first proposed in 1990, it was envisaged that
a library of books on food and cooking should also be created.
It was thought that the book collection would grow slowly
but steadily as a result of donations from food and cookery
writers, editors, and reviewers.
By the time the Jane Grigson Trust was founded
in 1991, Sophie Grigson had made the generous gesture of placing
the nucleus of Jane's personal collection of food books on
permanent loan to the Trust. These books form the unique core
of the collection. The titles cover a wide field: from an
eighteenth-century French treatise on butchery inspectors
to Edward Bunyard's Anatomy of Dessert.
Copies of Jane's own books are accompanied by
some of her notebooks and working papers used in their preparation;
there are unedited typescripts of many of Jane's articles
written during her long association with The Observer newspaper
and there is some of her professional correspondence.
The inauguration of the Jane Grigson Library
was held at London's Guildhall Library, the first home of
the collection, on 10 December 1992. The ceremony was attended
by many of Jane's friends and colleagues. Caroline Waldegrave,
Principal of Leith's School of Food and Wine, gave the opening
address.
During the next decade, the Jane Grigson Trust
received valuable donations of books from benefactors and
several most welcome bequests. The Trustees are always happy
to hear from intending donors. Since Jane Grigson's death
in 1990, the Trust's library has also been augmented by a
selection of recently published cookery and food books. These
titles have been chosen for inclusion by the Trustees on the
basis of merit and historical
interest.
By November 2005, when the Jane Grigson Library
moved from Guildhall Library to Oxford Brookes University,
the collection had doubled its original size to more than
4,000 volumes. At Oxford Brookes University the Jane Grigson
Library is housed in the newly-built Special Collections Reading
Room on the Headington campus, along with the archive of the
Institute of Brewers and the magnificent collection of books
on gastronomy that belonged to the late John Fuller.
In his welcoming address, Graham Upton, the
then Vice Chancellor, said "The Grigson Library, taken
together with the university's existing collections, now
constitutes an unparalled research tool of world class standard
for academic food studies." In reply, Sophie Grigson
said, "My
mother was very fond of Oxford. I feel her books have now
come home."
To mark the arrival of the Jane Grigson Library
in Oxford, the Trustees decided to continue to expand
their collection by the addition of specially selected books
on food, cookery and related subjects. Publishers are invited
to submit books to the Trustees for consideration. The publisher
of any title chosen to join the collection is permitted
to use the phrase "Accepted for inclusion in the Jane
Grigson Library" in their publicity for the book, and
to note this fact in any subsequent edition of the book.
For further details of this scheme, contact the Chairman
of Trustees on wgh@geraldeneholt.com or PaulLevy@PaulLevy.com
The Jane Grigson Library at Oxford Brookes University
is available for use by any accredited scholar, researcher
or interested member of the public.
Further details from www.brookes.ac.uk/services/library
Benefactors of the Jane Grigson Library
The Trustees are grateful to the following people
or their executors for donations, bequests and grants to the
Jane Grigson Library. Whenever possible book plates are affixed
to each volume to show the name of the donor and/or the previous
owner.
Caroline Hobhouse
Michael Smith
Iris Rayner Smith
Jeremy Round
Lesley Chamberlain
Helen Gifford
Catherine Denny Graham
Georgina Boosey
Miriam Polunin
Anne Dolamore and Grub Street Publishing
Mike Guthrie, Visiting Fellow, Oxford Brookes
University
The Culinary Trust, charitable arm of the International
Association of Culinary Professionals
Edouard Cointreau
|
