This scholarly history is Simon's first of more than a hundred contributions to the literature of wine. It is fitting that the aristocratic Saint-Evremond (1610-1703), who makes an early appearance in this book as an important promoter of champagne, had something in common with Simon, in that he spent a good part of his life in England. Because of political indiscretions in France, he opted to seek refuge in England (1661), where he lived a life fitting for a champagne lover. Like Simon, he lived to the age of 93, a rather ripe old age for the time and no doubt attributable, in some measure, to champagne. Swift, another literary figure (Saint-Evremond gained his literary fame posthumously), on the other hand, blamed champagne for his ill health. "Just as the man of to-day, who spoils a good dinner by two or three whiskies-and-sodas after hock, Champagne, and port, will attribute the next morning's headache to the Champagne of the night before, so did Swift, who drank more port than was good for him, blame Champagne when his liver was out of order …" [page 32].

Simon's audience for this book was the wine trade. It had in fact been written in instalments for the Wine Trade Review. "… most of the information … has been supplied by some of the oldest and most distinguished members of the Trade, both in England and Reims, [enabling the author] to state facts and figures strictly accurate and original." [page 1]. [See By Request, item 85 below].

"This Edition consists of 50 Copies printed on Dutch hand-made paper and numbered from 1 to 50." This copy not numbered: "Review Copy." Simon dedicates the publication of these facsimile reprints of originals in his possession to Lord Rendlesham, "the finest judge of Claret it has ever been my privilege to know …" Dated at Royal Societies Club, 24th June, 1912. "Richard Ames is as dull and as crude as any poetaster of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when discoursing upon politics, religion and the frailty of women, but he becomes quite fascinating when he tells us about his love for good Claret, and when he takes us round to all the most famour taverns in London, Westminster and Southwark."

Simon gives us a brief historical review of claret in Bordeaux and England [ix-xvi]. This is followed by Ames' series of vain searches for Claret in a monumental pub crawl, 90 in the first search, 70 in the "farther search," and 15 in the "last search," then in the end

"Resolving the dull tedious search to give o're
And never inquire for Old Dry Claret more."

Here are a few of their typical experiences:

" At the Rose we no sooner had come to the Bar,
But a sawcy Whelp askt if Arrested we were;
We esteem'd this Affront, as provoking as any,
Kick his Arse, and went out without spending a Penny."

"At the Captains we thought t'have found that which was good,
But he told us in short, 'twas a Wonder he shou'd;
For the French Wine he bought, and paid ready Cole for't,
E're it came into Cornhill 'twoud all of 't be Port."

At the Bear, "the first House in Southwark built after the Flood,
And has such a Succession of Vintners known,
Not more names were e're yet in Welsh Pedegree shown:
But Claret with them was so much out of Fashion,
That it has not been known there for a whole Generation."

In the "advertisement" at the end of The Search After Claret, Ames says: "If any Vintner, Wine-Cooper, &c. between White-Chappel and Westminster-Abby, have some … Old, Rich Unadulterated Claret, and will sell it … This is to give notice, he shall have more Customers than half his Profession …"

In the introduction, dated Christmas, 1912, Simon says "there must be many who would like to know something more reliable about alcohol than what is to be found in the numerous publications issued by the total abstinence associations. There has not been any comprehensive work upon wines and spirits published in England for many years, and the Committee of the Wine Trade Club have decided to issue a series of text-books to supply the public as well as wine-merchants with authentic facts and figures about wines. The present volume … consists of six chapters which correspond to the six lectures delivered by the Wine Trade Club at Vintners' Hall during the winter of 1911-1912 … it contains a … description of the wine trade in England and general information on the growing of vines, the art of wine-making, the science of distillation and the effects of alcohol upon the human body …" The Grant Richards catalog page at the end lists forthcoming books, uniform with this volume: The Blood of the Grape (in two volumes); The Tears of the Vine; The Spirit of Moderation.

Edition limited to 180 copies for sale, of which this is No. 136. No doubt the scarcest of the wine bibliographies. This is probably as good a copy as any still in circulation – better than either the New York Public Library copy (#97, seen in 1965), or the one I saw many years ago at Berry Brothers in London. A facsimile reprint, from André Simon's own copy, with additions entered on interleaved blank pages, was published by Holland Press, London, in 1979 (with a touching foreword by Hugh Johnson), in an edition limited to 600 copies. Another reprint was published in 1999.

"This Bibliography has been written primarily to supply a printed catalogue for the library of the Wine Trade Club." It is difficult to use as a reference work, because it is divided into 17 separate subject sections, four of them further sub-divided by language or geographic area. Of some help are five appendices which list authors alphabetically for books published in Latin, English, French, German and other languages. Fortunately this deficiency has been rectified by a bibliographical jewel, published by Gail Unzelman (Nomis Press, Santa Rosa, 1990), in which all three of Simon's bibliographic works are cross-referenced by author, short title and date of publication. Also included is a rather comprehensive checklist of Simon's works.

From a book collector's point of view, Simon's bibliographic entries are unsatisfying because they lack the descriptive detail of a Vicaire or Bitting that we crave . Eleanor Lowenstein, the late great dealer in books on cookery and wine, told me once that she found his bibliographies exasperating. However, in fairness to Simon, although he called this work a "bibliography" as well as a "catalogue," in his later Bibliotheca Gastronomica he retracted the "bibliography" appellation [see item 78 below].

At the time of publication of this book, the US was about to embark on its Prohibition voyage, and Simon makes a reference to it in the introduction: "… the same experiment as Mohamed and China made seven and fourteen centuries ago. If they persevere, it will be interesting to watch the results which will follow in a few generations … A world of total abstainers might be a decorous world, a virtuous world … [but] there is some evidence [that it might be] a world without poetry, without music, without painting, without romance; utterly destitute of humour …" This "textbook" presents a survey of wines and spirits, beginning with chapters on Port and Sherry and on through spirits, beer, and water, to the care of wine, the physiology of drinking, and some vintage notes (1847-1918). Simon mixes philosophy and humor with the facts, though some of the latter are surprising, as when he informs us that California extends to the 42nd parallel and that "in the north, it adjoins British Columbia." [page 100].

In the chapter on water, Simon says that the main reason for the neglect of the great variety and excellence of the mineral waters of England "is undoubtedly the ignorance of the great majority of English medical men …" which one may regret but which is understandable, since the subject is so complex, "and yet it forms no part of the medical curriculum." He relates an occasion when he had suffered food poisoning and a "celebrated Harley Street specialist" ordered him to drink only water – Vichy was fine – but declined to specify which one. When pressed by Simon, who enumerated some of the differences in the composition of the various Vichy mineral spring waters … "I was then informed icily that a doctor does not argue with a patient, and I realised very vividly that there was one very good reason for it." [216-217].

Signed on title page: "André L. Simon." Simon took much of his material from the 1919 edition of the same title, but there are a number of changes. For example, the passage on temperance and prohibition in the introduction of the 1919 edition is left out of this one. Also dropped are chapters on beer, cider, water, and on California. Wine areas added in this edition are Hock and Moselle, Yugoslavia, Switzerland. "Marsala" has been expanded and renamed "Italy," and rightly so, but will Sicilians forgive him? Gabler (page 260) lists the title as "Wines and spirits, the connoisseur's handbook."

Inscribed on endpaper: "For Nancy & Eberhard Buehler from André L. Simon, July 1967." German translation of Wines and Spirits, The Connoisseur's Textbook (item 59 above), by Ursula Schweickert. The selection of photos for this edition is mostly different from that in the English edition and there only 22, versus 26. The verso of the title-page indicates that there are 24 illustrations, which may include the frontispiece and the endpaper map. Rather interesting is the caption for the frontispiece illustration, which reads "German woodcut, end of 15th century." The caption for the same frontispiece in the English edition reads "A late fifteenth-century French Wood-Engraving."

On half title: "Being the substance of Lectures delivered at the Wine Trade Club during the winter 1919-1920, before employees in the Wine Trade." Simon provides information on all aspects of the wine trade, including ethics, about which he had strong feelings.

Listed at the end of the book are Simon's works to date on wine and the wine trade, all listed above, except for the three volumes of the History of the Wine Trade in England, 1906-1909, my fine copies of which, with an inscription by Simon in Volume 3, regrettably did not survive.

Other subjects in the Pitman Commodities series included coffee, copper, cotton, petroleum, salt, lead, explosives and many others. In this volume, Simon continues his educational campaign on wine, with chapters on the vine, wine making, history of wine in England, and surveys of port, champagne, claret, burgundy, hock and moselle. In the preface he deplores the sale of fake wines by shameless traders, because the buyer loses not only his money, but his health as well. Regarding his earlier works, he says that Wine and Spirits was written "for country gentlemen," The Blood of the Grape "for persons engaged or interested in the Wine Trade," and the present volume "… in order that the general public in England might acquire … a little more knowledge than they appear to possess about one of the greatest of all God's gifts to man: WINE." The preface is dated April, 1921.

Introductory note: "The following twenty chapters represent the substance of the Wine Trade Club Lectures delivered by Mr. André L. Simon at Vintners' Hall during the winter 1922-23 … Appendix A … winter 1920-21." In the introduction, Simon urges merchants not to ignore common wines. "Remember that common salt, common as it is, and common sense, uncommon as it is, are excellent, not to say indispensable." In the first third of the book, Simon reviews the various wines of Europe. The remainder is devoted to the shipment and care of wine, with appendices on fermentation, wine duties, regulations regarding British wines, etc.

In the introduction, Simon says that his History of the Wine Trade in England, written "more than twenty years ago," paused at the end of the seventeenth century, since another volume for the eighteenth century "on the same lines as the three preceding ones would have been too bulky." He decided to follow a different plan, and this book is the result. Two features that characterize this period are "the extraordinarily drunken habits of rich and poor alike" and the influence on civilization and table manners of the invention of the corkscrew, and all the changes it triggered. Chapter headings give a good summary of the contents: I & II. Queen Anne and the Georges; III. Smuggling, customs and excise; IV. Port; V. The wines of France; VI. The wines of Spain, the Canaries, Madeira, Italy and Germany; VII. Wine glasses and wine bottles; VIII. Wine labels and bottlescrews; IX. Drinking songs and toasts. Simon dedicates this work to the cause of temperance, in the conviction that the more general use of wine "would help to check both drunkenness and teetotalism, evils which every fair-minded and temperate man cannot help deploring." This is a recurring theme in Simon's books, one that he felt very strongly about.

This book was also published in 1927 by Small, Maynard, Boston. Simon told me that he did not own that edition and that it was probably pirated.

Healy's foreword is written with the charm and humor that we came to appreciate in the books he was to write a number of years hence. Here he says that "Monsieur Simon has in a sense forestalled this magnum opus of mine, and has supplied me with that excuse for not writing it that I was anxiously seeking." Simon gives some reasoned advice on taste in food and drink. Good or bad taste in dress "cannot make any difference to anybody." But "the Claret you are drinking with the Chocolate Soufflé not only looks wrong but it is wrong, and it will do you harm." What others think it is better you not know. "But this is of very little importance compared to the distress caused to your inoffensive, helpless friends below, … your stomach, kidneys, liver, bladder … have to put up with the unholy mixture which you have so rashly sent below, where it will undergo all sorts of more or less violent transformations, generate gases and acids, and be a source of endless troubles …" [pages 16-17]. That was in the opening section, "The Art of Good Living." It is followed by sections on "Wine" and "Food: from hors d'oeuvre to dessert," with good advice in both. Finally there are extensive glossaries, one for gastronomy, and another for wine.

This book was first published in 1929 (London, Constable).

Simon's preface is pretty much identical to that of the first edition, but he adds that the vineyards and wines of the world are constantly changing and that "is why all books that deal with wine have such a short span of useful life. Hence this new edition … which is not only much enlarged, but different also from its predecessor in many respects." There are some new photos, but the basic outline is not much changed, except for the addition of a chapter on "Empire Wines" [Australia and South Africa]. In that chapter there are a few paragraphs on British wines, which, according to Simon, "must not be confused with English wines. English wines have been made for centuries past from rhubarb, cowslip, and various flowers, fruits, roots, and vegetables, but British wines are of recent date. British wines owe their name in the first place to the fact that they consist for at least three parts of their bulk of Thames water or water from some entirely British river. Until the War, the raisins or ‘must’ imported to make British wines came mostly from Greece. Since the War, however, Empire ‘must’ is being imported …" [page 126]. And I had always thought that Rumpole's "Thames Embankment" red or white was a fictional product.

Laid in is a signed, typescript letter from Simon to Bob Brown, which reads in part: "I am very sorry that I did not have your address when I was in New York earlier this year for a very short time, as it would have given me much pleasure to meet you and also to look at your stock of books – although I have as many as ought to satisfy any greedy collector, I am still on the look-out for rare items."

On cover: "Price 10 cents." A little reference booklet, with a series of questions and answers – a French wine FAQ, we might say – and a glossary (pages 37-64).

A modified edition of item 67 above. There is an added page on the dessert wines of Languedoc and Roussillon, and the glossary has been dropped.

Colophon: "And so, Gentle Reader, the printing of this book, written by brother André, was completed at Watch Hill Farm, Peekskill, New York, on the last day of October, MCMXXXVII, with much travail and many interruptions. Two hundred, three score and fifteen copies were wrested from a reluctant hand press by James Hendrickson, poor wretch, who by the Grace of God might have been otherwise, but not more pleasantly, employed. C.G." Simon's signature appears at the end of the "Introductory Note" on page v: "André L. Simon."

The Lords of the Privy Council met twice a week in the "Court of Star Chamber," so-called because the room had a star-spangled ceiling. On completion of their court cases, the lords would enjoy a lavish dinner as guests of the sovereign, at which the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chancellor were the last speakers. Simon had collected a large number of records with detailed accounts of these dinners covering a period of 120 years, from Henry VIII to Charles I. He was inspired to look up some of the actual cases heard in the court, and was then tempted "to try and bring back to life, in the form and language of an Elizabethan play, the Lords of the Star Chamber in Court and at dinner." The play is in five acts: 1 - kitchen staff at market in the morning buying provisions for dinner; 2 - court room proceedings; 3 - kitchen discussion of food to be served; 4 - butler and "wine-drawer" discussing the wines to be served; 5 - the dinner, or rather the after-dinner revelry. The language is properly bawdy. For example, in discussing one of the wines to be served – a Rhenish wine from a new cask – the butler says: "God and the vintner man be praised for't. My Lord Buckhurst was loud enough in his cursing of the last Rhenish we had. He swore 'twas as thick as puddle and horsepiss." [page 34].

A comprehensive dictionary of food and drink, from "abalone" to "zwieback," and including many French culinary names. "French has been the universal language of Gastronomy far longer than English has been the universal language of sport. There is no French name for a handicap or a starter, a putter or a niblick, and there is no English name for Foie Gras, Bouillabaisse or Mayonnaise." [foreword].

The first of 17 uniform booklets on wine in this format. Champagne was André Simon's first wine love and the subject of his first book in 1905. Gabler (page 262) and Unzelman (page 342) list this and the following item (72) as the first two of 10 items published in 1950.

The second of 17 booklets in this format.

Volumes 3 through 10 of the 17 published in this series. See following item (74).

From colophon of the last volume (Hocks and Moselles): "Published in 1949 – Champagne, Port. Published in 1950 – Sherry, South Africa, Claret, Sauternes, Brandy, Rum, Burgundy, Hocks & Moselles." Note that the first two were not boxed with the present set.

Of the 17 volumes published in this series, two were first published in 1949 (Champagne and Port), eight more in 1950, and the remaining seven in 1951. Brandy, which appears as the eighth volume in the present set, was first published in 1950. This reprint is identical, except for the map placement, printer, date and color of binding.

There appears to be some confusion about which volumes belong to which series. Newman Neame later sold two series "in a gaily coloured gift case" … "First Series: Port, Champagne, South Africa, Sherry, Claret, Sauternes, Hock, Burgundy; Second Series: Madeira, Yugoslavia, Italy, Switzerland, California, Loire, Rhône, Brandy. Additional volume: Rum." [See back of dustjacket of What About Wine?, item 80 below]. This is the same list that appears on the colophon pages of the present set, which is also housed in what might be considered "a gaily coloured gift case." Obviously the booklets were packaged in several combinations at one time or another.

First published 1950. Second edition 1951. Identical to first edition, except for colophon. The colophon lists all booklets published: "First Series – Champagne, Port, Sherry, South Africa, Claret, Sauternes, Burgundy, Hocks & Moselles – Brandy, Rum. Second Series – Italy: I Table Wines, II Dessert Wines, Madeira, California, Switzerland, Yugoslavia, Rhone, Loire." This is another variant, but it lists all 17 volumes.

An attractive little book with general advice for the novice. "… the poor man with a palate is much better off than the rich man who has not got one, since he may possibly be rich one day, and still have a palate, whilst the rich man who may be poor one day will never have any taste." [page 6].

A long ramble through the gastronomic woods with the most knowledgeable of companions. Simon presents a mixture of historical information on wine and food, descriptions of memorable meals, and advice on wine and food in general. There are a number of chapters on wine and chapters on old cookery books, English truffles, and so on. The chapter on wine and tobacco is interesting because of Simon's lifelong devotion to good cigars. In the same chapter he tells us why he disagrees with the view that as a rule women have a better palate than men. I don't agree with his reasoning, but it's interesting nonetheless. Simon deplores the shortage of wine: "Why wine … should be barred at a time when other foods are in short supply, and when most people are so badly in need of a tonic, is a sure sign, and unfortunately by no means the only one, that we live in a world that is quite mad." [page 19]. Of particular interest to me is the chapter "Gourmand and Gourmet," which explains the difference very well, and which has been an education to me. I had thought that the distinction we observe in English was not as strong in French. This was based on the use of these words by Grimod de la Reynière, and on the fact that so many words lose something in the transfer from French to English and vice versa. On checking Le Grand Robert, one of my prized CD-ROM possessions, I learned that the word gourmand in the 17th century referred to someone who loves good cooking, is exacting in matters of food, but it changed its meaning to "big eater" in the 18th century – goodbye Grimod. However, when the word gourmet is used as an adjective, as in "gourmet meal," since gourmet has no feminine form, the preferred word today is gourmand. Etymologically, gourmet comes from Old French gromet, meaning valet [related to horse groom], and later valet of a wine merchant. The connection with gourmand came later. Sorry, I couldn't resist this digression – thanks, André.

"This edition is limited to 750 copies. This is Number 125." Simon says that typographical details, such as format and number of pages, have not been given except for some rare incunabula and certain items of unusual shape. For some books reference is made to Bibliotheca Bacchica, which gives "fuller bibliographical treatment" to incunabula and sixteenth-century books. "No bibliography of Gastronomy has so far been published in any language comparable to Vicaire's Bibliographie Gastronomique (1890). Vicaire describes with commendable accuracy a very great number of books of gastronomic interest … Bibliotheca Gastronomica is quite different both in its purpose and its form: it is not a Bibliography but the Catalogue of a very personal Library, a Catalogue of some of the books which have given me considerable pleasure to collect in the course of the past half-century … When I decided to hand over my Library to the Wine and Food Society for safe keeping, I realized that … there should be a Catalogue …" The introduction is dated Christmas, 1952.

"This edition is limited to 750 copies. This is Number 644."

Another attractive little book, in the form of questions and answers on a wide range of wine topics. Simon, in his inimitable way, is never condescending, and can be suprisingly specific at a basic level.

An annotated dictionary of English foods (fish, flesh, fowl, game birds, cheese, English sauces), together with a listing of a thousand or so French wines: Three-star, Two-star, One-star and Ordinaires. "English fare is … never so good as in England, never better than when partnered with French wines." [page viii].

©1956. Simon feels Great Britain's compensation for its bad climate is the availability of a great variety of wines. Although people in the wine countries pay no more for wine than a Briton pays for beer, they drink the same wines day after day. "… one cannot get any Chianti or Pouilly in Bordeaux, any more than a Barsac or Saint-Julien in Beaune, and anybody asking for Hocks or Moselles in Italy, Spain and Portugal would probably be told that they had not heard of it and that the Germans never made any wine at all." The purpose of this book is to provide guidance in matching "all manner of different foods with all manner of different wines …" And it is to be understood that any wine recommended may be replaced by any other of the same type. For each month of the year, there are three party luncheons, three simple luncheons, three party dinners, three simple dinners, with food and wine specified for each. And these are not just variations on a standard gourmet theme. One "simple dinner," for example consists of cucumber soup, fried skate, veal olives, and baked gooseberry pudding, washed down with Lutomer Chipon, a Slovenian white. All component foods and wines are indexed at the end of the book. Twelve "gourmet" meals per month – a lot to digest.

Covers the wines of Europe, and has a few pages on South Africa and Australia.

See item 83 above.

Simon was eighty when he completed this autobiography. Who would have guessed that there would be another autobiography a dozen years hence? As the title suggests, Simon wrote this book at the insistence of his friends: "There are now a great many members of the Wine and Food Society of the world: they all know the name of the President …, but most of them know absolutely nothing about him except that he is an old man who appears to enjoy still a remarkably fine appetite. – Why should they wish to know more? – I cannot tell, but I have been assured persistently and, at last, convincingly that they do …" [foreword].

For a wine lover who also loves books on wine, this is of course must reading. Of special interest is the story of how Simon was able to return to his first love – printer's ink. In 1903, shortly after moving from Reims to London, the journalist A. S. Gardiner, to whom Simon had confessed his first love, commissioned him to write twelve articles on champagne to be published in the Wine Trade Review, over Simon's objection that his English was imperfect. "Gardiner not only vetted my prose but he took great trouble to make me realize the difference between what was permissible and what was desirable in the matter of grammar and construction. When, in December 1905, these articles were published in book form, … I was naturally very happy and quite unduly proud of myself. I had had a book, my first book, published. It was cheaply and poorly printed … in a small edition …; sales were small and practically all the copies were given away. – The History of the Champagne Trade in England has long been out of print and out of date; it never was a good book, I know, but for me it is the most important of all my books. I had written it for the love of printer's ink, and … it was a marvellous tonic …" [pages 18-20].

The addenda consist of notes on the various branches of the Wine and Food Society and their anniversary dinners. Simon describes the dinner held by the New York branch in May 1955. "Jeanne Owen [Executive Secretary since 1938] has somehow managed to become a most efficient American business woman without ceasing to be an irresistibly charming Frenchwoman … … She went to Air France and suggested that it would be a gracious gesture on their part to fly me from London to Paris, from Paris to New York, and back again in two hops a few days later, and Air France at once said: ‘Avec plaisir, Jeanne!’ …" [153-154]. Well, you'll just have to read the whole book yourself.

Designed and produced for McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, by Rainbird McLean, London. Copyright in Great Britain 1957. With reference to the production of this book and the quality of the photographic reproduction, Simon says in the introduction: "It is the first time in the history of the wine trade and of the book trade that you will be able to see the exact size, shape and colour of the Cabernets, Pinots and other grapes, as well as the exact colour of the wines made from each of the main varieties of grapes. – … – Why has it never been done before? First of all because it could not be done before the recent development in the art – it is more than skill – of colour photography, of which I believe Percy Hennell to be the greatest exponent. In the second place, because to transfer his colours to paper without loss of quality is a very costly business, and it has not been easy to find a publisher, willing, able, and courageous enough to undertake such a publication which is in itself a major operation. … … May this book bear witness to my affection and gratitude for the Grand Wines of my native land, be they little or great."

Simon is not alone in his high regard for Hennell. I've seen Percy Hennell referenced elsewhere as the leading expert in the UK in matters of color photography. If this uncommonly attractive wine book is also a ground-breaking wine book, it is fortunate for collectors that it is such a common book. There must have been a very large print run. This book was also offered in special luxury bindings.

"Second printing. Copyright Rainbird, McLean Ltd." Otherwise identical to item 86 above.

©1958 by André L. Simon. Original English edition published by McGraw-Hill Book Company; Producers, Rainbird McLean, London. German translation by Margarete Montgelas. Inscription on title-page: "[?Wehrer], gagné à la Tombola du [??], Luxembourg, 11.3.1960." The original dustjacket is missing.

"As the mating instinct is the natural urge to secure the survival of the race, and the herd instinct the natural urge for safety in a world full of fears, so the wine instinct is the natural urge for joy." [page 1]

First published 1958. There have been a number of variants of this wine book genre over the years. In English, Simon was, I believe, first with Wine as a separate section (1946) in the series A Concise Encyclopaedia of Gastronomy (1940-1946), followed by A Dictionary of Gastronomy (1949). Then there was Schoonmaker's Dictionary of Wines (1951), James' A Word Book of Wine (1959). Lichine raised the bar with his much more extensive Encyclopedia of Wines and Spirits (1967), and Simon made a final contribution with Gazetteer of Wines, his last work published posthumously (1972). And there were others, but none can compare with the current giant of the genre, Robinson's Oxford Companion to Wine, first published in 1994 and now in its second edition. Of course, preceding the works in English were massive works in German, such as Blüher's Meisterwerk der Speisen und Getränke, with a big section on wines (1901ff), and Goettler's Lexikon … (ca 1910). In French, there was the Dictionnaire de l'Académie des Gastronomes in two volumes (1962), the OIV's Lexique de la Vigne et du Vin (1963), and others no doubt.

4. Auflage. Additions ©1960 by F.A. Herbig Verlagsbuchhandlung. This German translation of A Dictionary of Wines, Spirits and Liqueurs by Ottomar Starke has been somewhat revised and considerably enlarged. Additional material includes beer and brewing, and mixed drinks. From the point of view of graphic presentation, this book is an improvement over the original English edition. The illustrations for the initials were also used in the first US edition (item 92 below).

A laid-in card identifies this edition as "22nd thousand" and as a "special edition, awarded a gold medal by the German Academy of Gastronomy, Frankfurt."

First American edition 1963. The text appears to have been printed from the same plates as the first edition of 1958 (item 90 above). The interspersing of decorative initials accounts for the 23 additional pages – "XYZ" taking up only one, and "A" occupying a formerly blank page. The first UK edition had no illustrations.

The first textbook on table manners to be printed, "as far as we know, was published in 1483 …" and written by Giovanni Sulpizio of Italy. Even older, pre-dating Sulpizio's birth, is the present manuscript, probably written at the beginning of the 15th century and apparently never printed "because it was somewhat outmoded by the time when the printing press first came into use." A few samples of the advice offered: "The nose is first well cleaned of mucus / Nor should the bare hand touch it afterwards." … "Let not the soup stain thy mouth nor thy breast." … "When the domestic flea with six legs comes among those dining / Thou shouldst not try to touch nor scratch thine head." … "A man's beard should not be immersed in the wine: / Everyone should abstain from too much wine." The translation is by O.J.A. Russell. "The frontispiece is from the 1499 edition of […] in the Wine and Food Society's Library." Simon crossed off the words "the Wine and Food Society's" and wrote "my own," followed by his signature: "André L. Simon."

©1960 by F.A. Herbig, Munich. In series "Praktische Reihe" – Heyne book number 4121/22. The content has been revised in part from the 1960 edition and the illustrations and maps are different, except for the initials.

Simon was able to acquire 250 records of the Star Chamber dinners, from 1519 to 1639. Of these he chose "fifty from 1567 to 1605 which cover Shakespeare's life because of the added literary interest which they obviously possess for Shakespeare scholars; and I have also selected … a number of contemporary recipes …" Section I of the book is "A Commentary on Tudor Food," including meat, fish, vegetables, fruit, bread, as well as a section on "The Cellar" (beer and wine). Section II reproduces the actual accounts, while Section III consists of recipes. For Simon's earlier work on this theme, see Star Chamber Revels, item 69 above.

©1962. Designed and produced for the Ebury Press by George Rainbird, London. A wide-ranging historical survey of the world's most widely appreciated beverage. The first chapter is titled La Champagne (the province), the second Le Champagne (the wine). This are followed by another nine chapters of history. The book concludes with chapters on the current state of Champagne, its vintages, bottles, corks and glasses. The final chapter is an account of the case brought against "Spanish Champagne" by the Champagne shippers and the conservative old wine merchants of Britain. The legal reasoning that led to the final decision for the plaintiffs was quite impressive and, in the end, very convincing, even though the arguments of the defense seemed, at first, equally convincing. As I was reading this stirring legal saga, the thought crossed my mind that, just as catholic with a small "c" is all-embracing, while Catholic with a big "C" is quite specific, we might consider a parallel use of champagne and Champagne. But when I reached the end of the case, I changed my mind – there aren't enough dedicated linguists in the world to make it work.

In his foreword, Simon references his The History of the Champagne Trade in England of 1905. "This book has long since been out of print, as well as out of date, and so much has happened in Champagne and to Champagne during the twentieth century, that it is high time to bring its fascinating story up to date."

©1962. Designed and produced for McGraw-Hill Book Company by George Rainbird, London. Identical to the original London edition, except for the title, and the additional color photo plate and illustrations for the added chapter on "American Champagne." By the most hilarious twist of irony, the chapter on American Champagne immediately follows the chapter on The "Spanish Champagne" Case. French Sonoma, anyone? Well, at least there was a limit to our effrontery: no American Champagne map.

©1962 by George Rainbird. Original English edition, The History of Champagne, published by The Ebury Press. Chapters 1-13 and 21-24 were translated into German by Wilm W. Elwenspoek, while chapters 14 to 20 on Sekt were written by Helmut Arntz. Chapters 1-13 correspond to chapters 1-13 in the Enlish edition, while 22-24 = 14-16. Chapter 21, however, is a translation (with a number of paragraphs omitted) of "American Champagne," which is chapter 18 in the US edition. The title of this book is also a hybrid of the English and US editions: "Champagne and Sekt. The history of sparkling wine."

The chapter on the "Spanish Champagne" case (chapter 17 in the English and US editions, has been omitted from this German edition. Instead, the opening chapter on Sekt (chapter 14), explains how the word Sekt came to be applied to German sparkling wine. As is true with so many words we take for granted, the etymological path was rather convoluted, but I'll spare you the details. The word champagne had also been used generically in Germany for any "sparkling wine," as it had been elsewhere in Europe, including France, until that usage became illegal under terms of the Versailles Treaty of 1919. Only five of the photo illustrations in this edition match those of the original edition, and there are a number on the subject of Sekt. One of the photos substituted in the Champagne section is quite interesting, showing the operation of placing baskets of Champagne bottles, ready for shipment, into the hoist that transports them from the deep chalk cellar up to the top. The endpaper and dustjacket illustration has been revised to depict German Sekt bottles in addition to Champagne. Some of the tables at the end have been replaced with Sekt-related statistics, and a list of Sekt producers. In addition to the maps of France and Champagne, there are maps of Germany and Rhein/Main.

©1962, George Rainbird. ©1968 for the Italian translation. Translated from the original The History of Champagne by Giuseppe Castoldi. Appears to be a complete translation, omitting only chapter 17 (The "Spanish Champagne" Case) and Appendix 2. There are no maps or illustrations.

©1962, George Rainbird. This edition published 1971 by Octopus Books, London.

First published 1963. Produced for McGraw-Hill by George Rainbird, London. Simon says in his foreword that on his first visit there in 1911, he fell in love with the Rhine and the Moselle. The only other two rivers he had known then were the Seine and the Marne, "both famous in French history but not comparable in beauty with the Rhine and the Middle Moselle." He has made "one more visit, perhaps my last, … in the company of a younger and far better informed man than myself – … Fritz Hallgarten … [whose] knowledge of the vineyards and wines of Germany is unsurpassed." Following a short history of German wine, there are chapters on wine-making, the naming of wines, the vineyards and their grapes, the great vintages, Sekt, brandy, wine containers. There is also a glossary and a number of appendices with a variety of wine statistics. The bibliography does not list the Simon/Arntz work on Champagne and Sekt, published shortly before this book.

First published 1963. Produced for McGraw-Hill by George Rainbird, London. Another copy (see item 101 above)

©1966 by Wine and Food Society Publications. Produced by George Rainbird, London. Also published by Michael Joseph, London. There were later printings, as well. The book is in a question and answer format throughout, with short introductory chapters followed by detailed information on specific wine areas – France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and the rest of the world. "All that I have learnt in the course of the four score years during which I have loved wine, has been the making of this book. I have done my best to answer all the questions which I have ever asked myself, and the questions which a great many people have asked me during my long and well-wined life." [preface]. In his foreword, André Maurois expresses gratitude to Simon "for having been for so many years the ambassador of the wines of France."

©1966 Lansdowne Press (Melbourne). Published 1967 by Paul Hamlyn. There were also later reprints. The material is in three parts: The Vineyards, The Wines, The Vignerons (pages 1-126). These are followed by seven appendixes on subjects ranging from history to grape varieties to wine in the kitchen, and a glossary of wine-tasting terms. The opening and closing paragraphs of the foreword are interesting: "There are in Australia a great many wines from fair to fine in quality which are characteristically Australian wines. They cannot be anything else: they are members of the great family of wines of the world, just as the men who make the wines are members of the great human family … – – The world is made of all sorts, and there are all sorts of wines for them all. There is no reason why any of the good wines which are better known than others should be jealous of other good wines not so well known as they are themselves: there can never be too many good wines in the world any more than there will ever be too many good people." This same preface would, I think, go nicely with a book on Canadian wines.

I was amused by a jacket-blurb paragraph about Simon: "As a young man, he married an English girl and went to London to represent the champagne firm of Pommery." I had visions of a similar paragraph about Mrs. Simon – As a young woman, she married a French boy and went with him to France to live in the Champagne country.

Designed and produced by George Rainbird, London. ©1967. From the introduction by Simon: "There are not so many vineyards in Europe now as there were a hundred years ago, but there are many more in both North and South America, as well as in Australia and South Africa, so that, on balance, the acreage is greater today than it has probably ever been …" The growing demand for more homes and factories is threatening the existence of some vineyards. "Haut-Brion and Pape Clément, near Bordeaux, have been reached and by-passed, but the fate of some ‘suburban’ vineyards near San Francisco and Adelaide is very precarious … – … The outstanding excellence of the really great wines nowhere else to be had except from France and Germany is responsible for their very high cost which places them outside the reach of all but the wealthy, and it is most unfortunate that the people who have greater wealth do not necessarily possess a sensitive palate, a gift which one gets or does not get at birth; it cannot be bought over the counter." Simon's view of the wines of France and Germany is reflected in the space devoted to them in this book – 124 pages for France, and 120 for Germany. Next come Italy with 116, Portugal with 102, and Spain with 76. The rest of Europe gets 48 pages, followed closely by Australia and New Zealand with 42. Which leaves North and South Africa (26), and the Americas (38). By the mid sixties, California was being noticed and that is reflected in its allocation of 22 of the Americas' 38 pages. Anyway, I went to the trouble of doing the counts, and felt compelled to inflict them on you.

In the acknowledgements department, Anthony Hogg thanks his wife, among others, "who first insisted that the writing of these chapters would be more useful and less destructive than swinging a golf club on her carpet …" This book saw its 4th printing in 1969, and a second edition in 1981, edited by Serena Sutcliffe.

Simon had finally retired full-time to Little Hedgecourt, his home away from London for many years, when he wrote this, his second, autobiography. He tells us about many events in his long life, some of them new, some told again with a new twist. There is a chapter on collecting wine books, at which he was as proficient as he was at writing them. His accounts of trips to the United States are quite entertaining. One of his gastronomic adventures took place on a flight from New York to London in 1935 [pages 71-72]. I would say this adds pioneer of early transatlantic airline travel to his many other distinctions. There is a faint note of regret in Simon's accounts of his efforts over the years in establishing American chapters of the Wine and Food Society. Reflecting on his whirlwind tour of the US in 1946 with Frank Schoonmaker, organized by Crosby Gaige: "The only part of Crosby's plan which I did admire was its full morocco binding!" [73] He felt that "all the time and money I spent in the United States, during some thirty years of my life, on and off …" could be called a failure, except that as a gardener at Little Hedgecourt he realized that one must have patience. "The Wine and Food Society has now blossomed beautifully, and it has become a national institution." He attributes his initial failure to not meeting the right people, such as George Rezek, "a gardener of genius." He had met Maynard Amerine, "more knowledgeable about wine than either Dr. Rezek or myself, [but] his work at the University of California left him no chance for the kind of missionary crusading in the Rezek style even had the gift been his." [73-74].

Simon's dedication: "I wish to record my grateful appreciation of the most valuable help given to me, in my near blindness, by my young and dear friend, Hugh Johnson, who has seen this book through the press."

In his foreword, George Rainbird says that this was Simon's last book. "At the time of his death the Gazetteer was completed but needed revising … This task is now complete, and the Gazetteer of Wines stands not only as a unique index of world viticulture, but as a final tribute to André L. Simon." A review of the "major vinelands of the world" (pages 11-53) is followed by the dictionary itself (pages 55-246, double column). The entries are short, averaging two to three lines each. From Simon's introduction: "Admittedly incomplete as our gazetteer may be, we claim that the many thousands of vineyards and wines recorded here … are those of most, but not all of the world's known vineyards and wines."

Five copies of this work, numbered 1 to 5, included a suite of the woodcuts. There were also 20 copies on "Hollande van Gelder" (6 to 25), 75 copies on "vélin de pur chiffon" (26-100) and 50 contributors' copies on various papers (I to L). This copy is not numbered.

The book is organized by astrological horoscope, with each month assigned a sign of the zodiac – from Capricorn for January (22 December to 22 January) to Sagittarius for December (22 November to 22 December). A full page woodcut illustration introduces each month and a headpiece woodcut accompanies each month's calendar, with saints or church holy days shown for each day. The editors tell us that their information was drawn from a treatise on Black Magic, "Cardinal Richelieu's fortune-telling (Hachette edition) and the works of Sir John Never-Takeenough, Queen Victoria's head chamberlain." Readers are invited to submit further information. The material consists of a miscellany of poetry, quotations on wine from various sources, drink recipes, and so on. Each month also has a short piece on a French wine region. André Simon apparently edited the contents for technical accuracy, and he turned a "wild child" into a "well-mannered girl." In any case, one of the objectives of this "calendar," which they hoped to continue in following years, was to speak out against the hypocrisy of prohibitionism. "They deprive themselves of life in order not to risk losing it."