Domestic Cook Book, pub-lished in 1866, is a fascinating first-person chronicle of a free woman of color in mid-19th century Amer-ica. Hers was a life of “hard labor” and travail, but she overcame all her hardships and setbacks with an indomitable spirit. It is truly an American story.Like its author, the fragile copy of A Domestic Cook Book, housed in the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive at the Clements Library, is a survi-v o r.1 To our knowledge, it is the only copy extant of the first cookbook authored by an African American. All we know about Malinda Russell is what she tells us in “A Short History of the Author” and her “Rules and Regulations of the Kitchen.” Her story, outlined below, is remarkable, and I encourage you to read her first-hand account in this facsimile.Malinda Russell was born and raised in Wash-ington and Green Counties, eastern Tennessee. Her mother was a member of one of the first families set free by a Mr. Noddie of Virginia. “My mother being born free after the emancipation of my grandmother, her children are by law free.”When Russell was 19 years old, she set out with others for Liberia. When her money was stolen by a member of the party, she was “obliged” to remain in Lynchburg, Virginia. There she began working as a cook and a companion, traveling with ladies as a nurse. She also kept a wash-house and advertised in a local newspaper; she included a reproduction of one such ad in her book.