She was the Nigella Lawson of her day, a wide-ranging life-style goddess who preached to the upper-class ladies of the mid-18th century.

But some of the recipes of Eliza Smith would be hard to follow today, as many of her ingredients, like burnt bees, pure musk and sheep dung are not often in stock, even at the larger branches of Waitrose.

When first published in London in 1742, Mrs Smith’s The Compleat Housewife Or Accomplish’d Gentlewoman’s Companion became an instant bestseller and ran into at least five editions. An American edition, the first cookbook to be published in the colonies, followed four years later as a guide to English fashion for Virginia’s ladies of taste.

Charles Hanson, an auctioneer in Lichfield, Staffordshire, has unearthed a rare early edition of the 228-page volume and will put it up for sale on May 3. He expects it to fetch at least £800.

Not all of Mrs Smith’s recipes would appeal to the modern delicate palate. To please a hungry husband she advocates a meal of sliced cows’ feet, or a ragoo of pig’s ear garnished with barberries. Pigs’ ears (dried, mercifully) are now generally confined to dogfood but the barberry, a sharp-tasting fruit, is still used in Middle Eastern cooking, where it is known as zereshk.

Mrs Smith covers every aspect of the kitchen, including cookery, cakes, pastry, creams, confectionery and jellies. She comes into her own, however, when she gives health and beauty tips, of great concern to Georgian England in the days before modern medicine or Laboratoire Garnier. Some of the tips have an air of witchcraft about them, not unlike some modern beauty products.

For a perfect complexion, try Mrs Smith’s preferred potion: “Wash your face in goose egg and water. Add three spoonfuls of milk to keep your face smooth and plump.”

Or perhaps you have a scald mark on your hand after slaving over a hot stove with the pigs’ ears. “Take a pound of hog’s lard and two handfuls of sheep dung, boil to an ointment, add a bit of an onion and white of an egg. In less than a week it will work well.”

Gentlemen are not forgotten; Mrs Smith has a sovereign remedy for male baldness.

“Take two ounces of boar’s grease, one dram of the ashes of burnt bees, one dram of the ashes of Southernwood, one dram of the juice of the white lily root, one dram of oil of sweet almonds and six drams of pure musk. According to the art, make an ointment of these. And, the day before the full moon, shave the place and anoint it every day with this ointment.”

She harbours no more doubts over the efficacy of her cures than do modern adverts for potions to recapture the skin of lost youth. “They are all excellent in their kind and have cured when all other means have failed and are ready to serve the publick.”

Little is known about Mrs Smith, although she is thought to have worked for a number of fashionable houses and noble families. Mr Hanson said: “We must remember that . . . the Great Plague, for example, had happened only 70 years before. Mrs Smith obviously treated a variety of ailments of the day, though you would perhaps not wish to feel unwell in her presence now.”

But what about her baldness cure? Is it the supermarkets’ failure to stock burnt bees’ ashes that drives so many present-day men to take the alternative route of shaving their entire heads?

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