Signed manuscript recipe for elderberry wine.

c.1880. An insight into the domestic life of a pioneering female scientist A recipe written and signed "C.H." by the first woman in Britain to receive a salary as a scientist. Herschel gives specific instructions, emphasizing the use of "brown" sugar, and promises that "in 3 months time it will be nectar". Handwriting comparisons suggest that she wrote the recipe pre-1800, possibly whilst she was her brother William's housekeeper. Herschel (1750-1848) made extensive discoveries of comets and nebulae, both independently and as assistant to William (1738-1822), who was a pioneering astronomer and inventor. The siblings were born in Hanover, where Herschel was denied any formal education and seemed destined to a lifetime of domestic servitude in the family home. In 1772, William, who now lived in England, rescued her from this fate and brought her to live with him in Bath. In Bath, Herschel assumed domestic responsibilities as William's housekeeper, alongside assisting him in his scientific pursuits. Her household duties ceased when William married in 1788. She moved out of his house, but the siblings continued to work together, and Herschel produced many of her finest scientific works in the following decade. The recipe is accompanied by a memorial pamphlet for Herschel and her family, containing descriptions of Herschel, William, and his son John taken from various 19th-century biographical dictionaries. An engraved portrait of Herschel, now detached, was originally affixed to the front cover. Single sheet of laid paper (211 x 162 mm), written on one side in black ink. Accompanied by engraved portrait of Caroline Herschel after Joseph Brown, at one time attached to bifolium containing printed biographies of Caroline, William, and John Herschel. Evenly toned, short splits to vertical and horizontal folds, a little nicked at edges: in very good condition.