Mrs. W. G. Waters was an English cookery writer whose biographical details are very limited in publicly available sources; neither her dates of birth and death nor her educational background are clearly recorded. She is known for a single work, The Cook's Decameron, the only one of her books held in this collection. Rather than presenting recipes as a plain list, the book uses a narrative framework to introduce Italian dishes, weaving recipes, cooking techniques and food observations into a story, so that readers learn about the flavours and methods of various Italian regions while following the plot. This approach of carrying culinary knowledge through storytelling was distinctive among English cookery books of its time and has made the work her best-known title. Given the limited material, the full scope of her writing career and the work's specific influence remain to be further examined.
