Paris: Fryam Press, 1936

8vo, pp. 182, including advertisements and index from p.151. Printed on cream vellum paper and bound in stiff paper wrappers, lettered in black to front panel and spine, and with faint mixology design underlaid to front panel. Original glassine wrapper. Uncut. Some tape strengthening to glassine, a portion of which is missing at spine and left edge of front panel, but a very well preserved copy.

First edition. No. 620 of 700 copies on cream vellum paper, of a total edition of 1000. INSCRIPTION TO FRONT FREE ENDPAPER: 'for Tony Pollard - a favorite artist - with our warmest affection -- Carol & Carl [Pforzheimer Jr.] Vigil Hill August/[illegible year]'. Carl Pforzheimer Jr. [1907-96] was an American banker. His father was a founder of the American Stock Exchange, and the Pforzheimer House at Harvard is named after the couple, who were major benefactors to the university (Carl Jr.'s alma mater).

Frank Meier was born in Austria in 1884, the son of innkeepers. In 1903 he went to New York, and learned his trade as a barman at the Hoffman hotel. He fought with the infantry and the Foreign Legion in the First World War, and was invited to open a bar at the Ritz hotel in Paris in 1920. It soon became the most popular and glamorous watering hole in the city, and the bar of choice for Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Ritz remained open through the Second World War, and Meier (an Ashkenazi Jew) used his trusted position to pass messages for the Resistance, and secure exit visas for those who needed them. Some sources suggest that he died in 1947, but the circumstances are unknown.

The Artistry of Mixing Drinks was published at the height of his fame, and includes many of his own inventions, including the Bee's Knees (gin, lemon, honey); the Olympic (Curacao, orange juice, brandy); and Corpse Reviver No. 2 (pernod, champagne, lemon). Each of his own recipes in the book are marked with his elegant monogram.

One of the key cocktail titles, this example in (most of) the scarce glassine jacket.