Grigson Collection

The core of the collection is the personal library of Jane Grigson. This collection, primarily of books and pamphlets, reflects closely the culinary themes that underpinned her writing, and includes her personal notebooks and drafts of her articles. In addition to this, the Jane Grigson Trustees continuously add material to complement and update the core collection.

Catalogued by Eleanor Possart in 2008-2013, with the exception of the 'Articles' series which was catalogued by Annabel Gill, with the help of Matt Griffin, in 2011.

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Jane Grigson, née McIntire, was born in Gloucester in 1928, but was brought up in Sunderland, and after taking an English degree at Cambridge in 1949, worked in art galleries, publishers, and as a translator. In 1953 she joined the publisher, George Rainbird, as a picture researcher, where she met her husband Geoffrey Grigson, who worked there as an editor.Jane herself did not start out to become an expert in food and cookery. It was only years later, after she and her family began to spend several months of the year in France, that Jane developed a fascination with French cuisine. She ended up researching and writing 'Charcuterie and French Pork Cookery', which looks into the wealth of cooked meat products that are available in even the smallest French market towns. This work was received with much acclaim, and as a direct result, Elizabeth David recommended Jane to The Observer newspaper as their food columnist. She remained in this capacity for the next twenty one years.As well as writing her columns and recipes, Jane also wrote eleven other books, including 'Jane Grigson's Fruit Book', 'English Food' and 'Good Things'.