Lettice Bryan

Lettice Pierce Bryan (1805–1877) was an American author, who wrote The Kentucky Housewife, a cookbook originally published in 1839.

Bryan was born in central Kentucky, probably near Danville, to James A. Pierce and Elizabeth Crow Pierce, one of three children. In 1823, she married Virginia-born Edmond Bryan. When Bryan was writing her cookbook, she lived in Monticello, Kentucky; her husband was studying at the Medical College of Ohio and the couple had nine young children. After the cookbook was published, the family moved twice - to Washington County and then to Grayson County, Kentucky. By the end of her childbearing years, Bryan had had 14 children.

Bryan died at age 72, in 1877, in Macoupin County, Illinois, at the home of her son-in-law C. F. Burnett. She is buried at Cave Hill Cemetery in Louisville, Kentucky. Her husband pre-deceased her, dying in 1863.