Wolley (Woolley), Hannah

Wolley (Woolley), Hannah (1622/3–c.1675) the first woman to author a cookery book in English. Other works had emerged in the 1650s with the names of aristocratic ladies featuring prominently on the title page, and there is no doubt that they carried out many of the recipes, but Wolley self-consciously wrote about food and domestic matters in order to publish, earn money, and address specific audiences. The different genres of book she constructed influenced the next 100 years of cookery publishing, and tell of a sophisticated understanding of the new social structures that came with the Restoration of 1660.