Six Little Cooks; or, Aunt Jane's Cooking Class

A children's story from 1877 that smuggles in a whole cooking course — six little cooks, Aunt Jane's kitchen, and 160 numbered recipes woven through the tale.

About the Book

1877Published
Elizabeth Stansbury KirklandAuthor
15Chapters
69Pages on this site

Elizabeth Stansbury Kirkland published Six Little Cooks; or, Aunt Jane's Cooking Class in Chicago in 1877. It is a story first: six girls spend their days in Aunt Jane's kitchen, and the reader learns alongside them.

The recipes arrive numbered, in the middle of the narrative — No. 140 is Barby's Waffles — so the book reads as a tale and works as a manual. It went through many printings; this text follows the tenth edition of 1900, copyright 1877.

This edition is built from a dual-engine reading of the original pages, checked against the scans.

This site reproduces the complete text of the original 1877 edition, digitized page by page from the original printing. The book is in the public domain.

Rights & ReuseThe complete text of Six Little Cooks; or, Aunt Jane's Cooking Class (1877) is in the public domain in the United States — like all works published before 1928 — and is free to read, download, quote, teach from, and reuse. This digital edition (its transcription, restored images, and site design) is © 2026 PhotoOpAI, and any editorial commentary we add is clearly marked as ours; the underlying public-domain text carries no such restriction.