The latest eBook to arrive at Project Gutenberg from our Digital Library (with help from the Distributed Proofreaders project) is How to Get Rich, another title from the “Multum in Parvo Library” series of chapbooks marketed as “the smallest magazine in the world.”

While the title might imply a book full of financial advice, this text really offers just one strategy for getting rich: produce consumable household goods and sell them at a profit. Thus, it turns out to be a collection of recipes.

Books from the late nineteenth century obviously show their age in the twenty-first, but recipe books suffer more than most. The names of ingredients and units of measurement are unfamiliar to the modern reader, and some of the recipes even include materials like lead and mercury which have fallen out of favor due to their harmful effects on human health. It is quite unlikely that anyone will get rich from reading this book. However, they might learn a little bit about advertising, manufacturing and publishing practices of the past, and for this, the book may reward a quick glance.

If you want to take a look for yourself, the full text can be read online or downloaded in popular eBook formats from Project Gutenberg.