File:Wolfe-Too-Many-Cooks-Recipe-Box-1.jpg

DescriptionWolfe-Too-Many-Cooks-Recipe-Box-1.jpg	English: Recipe box created to promote the serialized printing of Too Many Cooks, a Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout, beginning in the March 1938 issue of The American Magazine
Date	11 December 2014
Source	Own work
Author	WFinch
Other versions	— magazine page used as wrapper

The author of the work photographed is The American Magazine (Crowell Publishing Company), with pictorial wrapper illustrated by Vladimir Bobri (from the March 1938 issue of The American Magazine). No copyright notice appears on the box or its contents.

Image presents five detail views of the exterior, interior and selected contents of the box, which measures 5.5 x 7.5 x 7/8 inches.

One thousand of these promotional recipe boxes were produced: "An item that is almost as desirable as the first edition of the book, and even scarcer, is the promotional box of recipes produced by The American Magazine." (Otto Penzler, Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe Part I: A Descriptive Bibliography and Price Guide, 2001.)

In 1938, Stout visited a dozen U.S. cities: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Cleveland, Akron, Cincinnati, Louisville, Detroit, Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Louis. An editorial luncheon was given in each of the cities, with the menu made up from Too Many Cooks. As a keepsake for guests, The American Magazine created a small red box in the shape of a book, containing the menu of the "Living Issue Luncheon," a statement by Nero Wolfe, and the 35 recipes that appear in Too Many Cooks. The recipe box was wrapped with a reproduction of the title page from the story's March 1938 debut. Made up in a limited edition of 1,000 copies, the recipe box is described by biographer John McAleer as "one of the most sought-after items of Stoutiana." (McAleer, John, Rex Stout: A Biography. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1977, pp. 276–277, 556.)

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