author
Mrs. W. G. Waters
Best remembered for bringing Italian cooking to English readers, this early 20th-century food writer published a lively cookbook that mixes recipes with storytelling. Writing as Mrs. W. G. Waters, she helped make regional Italian dishes feel inviting and approachable.
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About the author
Published under the name Mrs. W. G. Waters, Emily Waters is best known for The Cook's Decameron (1901), a cookbook framed as a social tale and filled with Italian recipes. The book drew on the spirit of Boccaccio's Decameron and stands out for combining practical cooking with a playful literary setting.
Available library and catalog records also connect her with Just a Cookery Book (1924). Some biographical notes describe her as a skilled classicist who collaborated with her husband, William George Waters, on translations of Italian Renaissance literature.
That mix of literary interest and enthusiasm for Italian food gives her work a distinctive charm: her recipes were meant not just to instruct, but to make cooking feel cultured, sociable, and fun.