Perfumes and Spices - Including an Account of Soaps and Cosmetics - The Story of the History, Source, Preparation, and Use of the Spices, Perfumes, Soap, and Cosmetics Which are in Everyday use.

by A. Hyatt Verrill

In this book A Hyatt Verrill endeavours to tell the stories of spices, soaps and perfumes, to give their sources or origins, their histories, their uses and the processes by which they are prepared or manufactured.

358 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1940

About the author

Alpheus Hyatt Verrill, known as Hyatt Verrill, was an American zoologist, explorer, inventor, illustrator and author. He was the son of Addison Emery Verrill (1839–1926), the first professor of zoology at Yale University.

Hyatt Verrill wrote on a wide variety of topics, including natural history, travel, radio and whaling. He participated in a number of archaeological expeditions to the West Indies, South, and Central America. He travelled extensively throughout the West Indies, and all of the Americas, North, Central and South. Theodore Roosevelt stated: "It was my friend Verrill here, who really put the West Indies on the map.”

During 1896 he served as natural history editor of Webster's International Dictionary., and he illustrated many of his own writings as well. In 1902 Verrill invented the autochrome process of natural-color photography.

Among his writings are many science fiction works including twenty six published in Amazing Stories pulp magazines. Upon his death, P. Schuyler Miller noted that Verrill "was one of the most prolific and successful writers of our time," with 115 books to his credit as well as "articles in innumerable newspapers." Everett F. Bleiler described Verrill's "lost race" stories as "more literate than most of their competition, but stodgy."

When the Moon Ran Wild (1962) was published posthumously using the name Ray Ainsbury.

Reviews

[Jess · Rating 2 out of 5]

I generally enjoy reading books about perfumes and fully expect them to be at least somewhat cracked out, but this one is so -ist in the way it provides information (much of which is easily found elsewhere anyway) that it's really unenjoyable to read. Maybe I'll try it again at a later date, but right now it's a DNF.

[Christian West · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting work on spices, soaps and perfumes. Written in 1940 so doesn't have the latest and greatest, the text is not politically correct and it does come across a bit encyclopedic.