The Downright Epicure

Edward Ashdown Bunyard (1878–1939) was England’s foremost pomologist (student of apples) and a significant gastronome and epicure in the 1920’s and 30’s. He wrote three books of national significance: A Handbook of Hardy Fruits (1920–25), The Anatomy of Dessert (1929), and The Epicure’s Companion (1937, edited with his sister, Lorna). His family was the owner of one of England’s most significant fruit nurseries, founded in 1796 in Kent. In his written work, Bunyard was important for his trenchant and enlightening explication of the charm of apples, surely England’s most noble garden product, as well as pears and other fruits. Bunyard’s life ended tragically with his suicide in 1939.

This volume of essays, written for the most part by Edward Wilson, English scholar and fellow of Worcester College, Oxford, but with important contributions by Joan Morgan (England’s foremost authority on the history of apples), Alan Bell (biographer of Sydney Smith, formerly Librarian of the London Library) and Simon Hiscock (Senior Research Fellow in Botany at Worcester College, Oxford) topped and tailed by poems from Arnd Kerkhecker and U.A. Fanthorpe.

The studies include a biographical essay on Edward Bunyard and chapters about his friendship with Norman Douglas; his literary tastes; his scientific work in plant genetics; his relationship with the epicurean society, The Saintsbury Club; his work seen in the context of inter-war gastronomic writing; and his contribution to the horticultural world, particularly as a pomologist and enthusiast of English roses. It closes with a full bibliography of works by, and about, Bunyard.