William Kitchiner

William Kitchiner (1775–1827) was an English physician, optician, amateur musician and writer on cookery and good living. Inheriting a fortune from his father, a London coal merchant, he never practiced medicine seriously but devoted himself to experiment, hospitality and books. The Cook's Oracle (1817), whose recipes he claimed to have tested himself and stated by exact weight and measure, went through many editions in Britain and America; he also wrote The Art of Invigorating and Prolonging Life, a treatise on telescopes and The Traveller's Oracle.