A
Genre: Nonfiction
In Victorian England, there was one book that was designed as a one-stop-shop for questions about running a household: how to manage a dinner party, how to pay calls, how to cook, how much you should expect to pay servants, and even how to manage a lease. That guide was Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management.
Originally, the book was published as a serial, and even though Isabella Beeton died in 1865, the book continued to be updated until 1901 (to the point that people thought that perhaps Isabella Beeton was a fictional construct, much like Betty Crocker). It’s still in print to this day.
Often, in history circles, Mrs. Beeton is used as cookbook and the rest is ignored. The cookbook portions are fantastic: she lists what can be expected to be in season by month, and for each recipe, she gives how much it can be expected to cost and how many servings each recipe provides. Granted, a lot of the recipes are ripped off from previous cookbooks (Hanna Glasse’s Art of Cookery, Eliza Acton’s Modern Cookery for Private Families, as two examples) but Beeton’s versions are standardized, with things like actual measurements! And mostly clear instructions!
In addition to how to cook, Mrs. Beeton explains how to pick a good fish, what a good piece of meat looks like, and the general history of hunting. She gives basic household remedies for common diseases and injuries and advice on child-rearing (some of which makes sense and some of which… it continues to amaze me that our species has managed to survive itself). The introductions for each chapter on each food type begin with an often esoteric discussion on the topic, too. We have the natural and culinary history of fish, a discussion on the welfare of pigs…. It’s all very Victorian.
What I realized as I was reading the section on how to accept an invitation to a dinner party was that this was a guide to adulting in Victorian England. How do I set a dinner party? What is the polite way to manage conversation? How many servants are expected for my household? How much should I pay them? How do I negotiate a lease? What are the basic things I need to know about my rights as a wife? Under what circumstances can I get a divorce?
So all of these hot take thinkpieces on “why do Millennials think they need adulting school, why don’t they just know how to do these things, no one else needed adulting school!” are bullshit. Mrs.Beeton was adulting school. Gervase Markham was adulting school. All of these “how to run your household” guides from centuries past are adulting school. Dear Abby? Emily Post? Miss Manners? Ask Heloise? It’s all a version of “how do I act like a responsible, functional person in society?” How many people in the past fifty years have written into Dear Abby giving their method for a perfect cup of coffee (for fuck’s sake) or their method for sorting laundry so it’s efficient? WE ALL NEED HELP WORKING THIS SHIT OUT. We have since the beginning of time, and we have written proof for centuries of it!
Basically, the kids are fine, and they’ll be complaining about the generation after them in due time. Twas always thus, and always thus will be.
However, that said, this whole concept is also classist. The main audience for her book are middle class women who probably won’t have to worry too much about making four wardrobe changes a day (although the advice on “how to decide what garments you should buy, i.e. stuff that looks well made, and matches multiple things in your wardrobe” is pretty good for anyone who can afford to be a bit choosy when buying clothes). This is a how-to manual to act like the people whom you think are above your station. I can imagine a middle class woman reading avidly to know how to perform at a dinner party she’ll never have, or fantasizing about servants that her household’s income will never be able to support. It may also have been handy for people in service who could go, “Hey, now, I’m not getting paid my market rate! What’s up with that?”
I found this book to be a fascinating look into how people tried to run their houses. I doubt many people managed it perfectly – it’s basically impossible to follow all the advice – but as the popularly accepted ideal, it’s a peek into social history, and that, THAT is fun.
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I love these books. Okay, I’m never going to give a ball or hire a cook and there is a heavy aspirational element about them, but Emily Post et al. do teach that true class has more to do with dealing with others in a gracious manner, treating everyone from duchesses to dustmen with respect and realizing that life can be messy and complicated.
*glances over at Martha Stewart “Homekeeping Handbook” on shelf*
Guilty as charged! This sounds great, though!
And don’t forget that so many of these types of books are available for free download or online reading from sites like Internet Archive.
THIS WAS SO DAMN COOL!…And it also hit my in my heart-heart.
My mom used to collect stuff that I once called “paper crap.” (I was such an eloquent child.) She had everything from Victorian and Edwardian post cards to ladies’ home journals to, yep, cookbooks! I even remember her once mentioning Mrs. Beeton, so as I was reading this I swear I heard the whole article in mom’s voice.
She passed away unexpectedly last year and my dad, being the flaming asshat he is, threw away all her things behind my back. What I wouldn’t GIVE to have some of her collection now. Hell, anything really.
RHG – thank you, I will now call my shelf of old entertaining/etiquette books my collection on “adulting.” I am surprised I don’t have Mrs. Beeton’s. One of my favorites is A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband With Bettina’s Best Recipes by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron which is a book on navigating the first year as newlyweds. No advice on sexytimes, but there are tips on meeting new neighbors as well as cleaning and cooking for two. I think it was first published before 1920. My copy was updated for the 30s. Wedding showers were not the big events they are today!
I have a friend who collects these. A couple of years ago I gave her a copy of “Manners for women,” I think. It contained such necessary information as what to do if your maidservant acquired a follower, and who was responsible for what wedding expense. If memory serves, it’s the bride’s family’s responsibility to furnish the wedding carriage, but the groom’s family has to pay for the flowers to decorate the carriage. (If the groom IS the maidservant’s follower, cancel the wedding.)
I adore Mrs. Beeton’s for all the reasons you mention. I have the free download from Project Gutenberg, but I plan to get a hard copy at some point.
Last year, whilst I was reading The Pickwick Papers (which BTW, is an awesome road trip adventure, second only to The Wind in the Willows), I came across a description of two ladies cooking a dish called “pettitoes” that Dickens made sound so scrumptious! Not knowing what it was, I searched Mrs. Beeton’s and was terribly disappointed and not a little squicked out to learn it was pigs’ feet.
@Pam Shropshire BWAHAHAHA! So, basically, a dish by a fancy ass name can still be icktacular!
I mean, I guess we can’t blame the Victorians. They did try to warn us. “Pet,” “toes?” So punny, much no.
@roserita See, that’s just some next level cool learning shiznit. Now I’m imagining an historical romance built around a titled hero and heroine do the Meet & Greet & Hearteyes because their servants did the lovey dovey thing.
THIS IS A BOOK I NEED IN MY LIFE!
This particular book has a bad reputation in the UK. Mr. Beeton was a publisher and more than one person in the UK has informed me that anything Mrs. Beeton wrote was plagiarized.
FWIW, I mention it
When I was 9 or 10 I got the huge book Miss Manners’ Guide for the Turn-of-the-Millennium; I guess I had read the old Emily Post guides around our house and my grandmother’s house enough times. Now I convince myself to do cardio by only letting myself read historical nonfiction like this (also things such as The Federalist Papers and Charles Dickens’s account of his visit to the US) while on the elliptical. This book has been on my list for a while, but after seeing this review it’s moving to the top.
I had a reproduction of the first Mrs Beeton. So seriously, you should never speak to the servants except to say “Good Morning” and to give them orders? That is … rather scary. But not as bad as painting the back of the throat with sulphuric acid for a case of diptheria.
I have inherited two copies of Mrs Beeton. I’ve just checked: the one that isn’t packed away in boxes awaiting construction of my new library room (/jk)was given to my aunt in 1930 as a school prize for the Oxford School Certificate Examination. Interestingly I think it may be the 1907 edition – possibly a school library book that got weeded, as it has the school logo embossed on the front. I shall have to investigate.
OH MY GOD I CANT BELIEVE I FORGOT ABOUT THIS BUT…
@Gillian You just reminded me with the sulfuric acid thing about a documentary series EVERYBODY should watch! It’s called The Hidden Killers of the ____ Home and it’s available on YouTube. There are several episodes, Hidden Killers of The Tudor Home, the Victorian Home, The Edwardian Home, and The 60s Home.
It’s about all the products and innovations meant to make the home and person happier/prettier/more rad, but really was fatal AF. It is suuuuch a fascinating series! My favorite is all the crazy shit people were doing with electricity before understanding it in the Edwardian era.
THEY HAD UNGROUNDED ELECTRIC TABLE CLOTHES LIKE WTF?? How we ever survived as a species is beyond my lil brain lol.
@Gillian B Before being reminded of that, though, I was going to comment that…if memory serves me right…I believe servants of elite home were instructed to turn towards a wall if they ever crossed paths with a member of the household. “Showing face” was considered above their station and then ye ole rich whitey might have a conniption fit because YE GODS THERE ARE POOR PEOPLE AROUND ME NOOOOO.
*Insert epic-ass eyeroll here*
PBS did a really interesting adaptation of the author’s life, The Secret Life of Mrs. Beeton. It was a good look at that period in general (venereal disease is part of the plot, plus stepmothers). It was interesting to see how she came up with the idea and tested everything out while writing the book. Bonus Austen hero-JJ Feild.
https://www.amazon.com/Masterpiece-Theatre-Secret-Life-Beeton/dp/B000PFUA7S
@gloriamaria I don’t know if I agree with you on that. God knows it’s for sale in every National Trust bookshop, usually illustrated with pictures of a middle aged woman (Mrs Beeton died in her 20s). There’s a kind of fetishization of Mrs Beeton that goes hand in hand with her vilification. She’s held up as the doyenne of Victorian housewifery when she’s a small, commercial cog in a massive industry.
The plagiarism issue is interesting, because as Redheadedgirl points out she did a lot of transformative work on the recipes. Her husband ran a publishing empire, and Isabella proposed a woman’s magazine with reader submitted recipes, hints and tips. Her book isn’t far removed from a Good Housekeeping book now, in that respect. Most celebrity cook books these days are equally full of other people’s recipes with only minor adjustments that meet copyright criteria, and unlike a lot of modern cooks at least she’d tried cooking all the recipes she included at least once. So it’s true that almost none of the recipes are her own, but they are the recipes that after trial and error she concluded were best.
Things heating up in the vintage cookbook fandom, LOL.
Just want to second Jacqueline’s recommendation of the Hidden Killers series. They’re presented by Suzannah Lipscomb who is a historian, and she’s basically perfect and amazing and I love her – all the documentaries she does are great. Also, Lucy Worsley’s are fantastic too.
@Lucy RIIIGHT?!! I submitted it for a future link post on SBTB and I love that I’m not alone in my fangirling over it!
I think what I really like about Suzannah and the way that series is presented is how accessible it is. I’m obsessed with documentaries so I watch all kinds, but this one is informative without being overwhelming.
I never reread or rewatch anything, but that series I’ve seen twice now. IT’S THAT AMAZEBALLS!
http://m.historyextra.com/article/bbc-history-magazine/secret-life-mrs-beeton
@Jacqueline Exactly. She doesn’t dumb anything down but she doesn’t overload it with detail either, and she knows what the average non-professional history fan is going to find interesting. She also has this really compelling verbal delivery. Honestly, I think I just have a big crush on her, lol. There are a lot of female historians – particularly on BBC – right now, and I love most of them. Bettany Hughes, Janina Ramirez, Kate Williams to name a few. And then there’s the scientists, Alice Roberts being my favourite. *happy sigh*
@Lucy YES YES YES! So well freaking said! I swear, Suzannah does for history and context what David Attenborough does for the shit that lives on our planet! I TOO HAVE THE BIGGEST CRUSH ON HER! I mean, c’mon, a historian with a nose ring? THAT’S THE DEFINITION OF SWOONTASTIC!
Right now I’m in the middle of watching a fan-damn-tastic documentary on Netflix called The Ascent of Woman, hosted by Dr Amanda Foreman. It’s a multi-episode deep dive, where Amanda travels all over the world to tell the stories of women who HELLA changed history. It goes from Ye Ole Ancient Ass History to now.
I don’t think Amanda is as compelling as Suzannah, but she is pretty amazeballs in her own right.
@Lucy Also thank you for those other female historian names! I will definitely keep my eyes pealed for them! Are there any specific documentaries they’ve hosted that you’d recommend?
@Jacqueline This is a long reply – sorry to hijack the thread, everyone!
I’ve actually seen The Ascent of Woman! Thanks for the rec though, and yes, it’s brilliant. I agree she’s not as compelling as Suzannah, but that’s only because no one is. (I only wish I could carry off a nose ring like her. And the curls! Heckin’ christ, the curls…)
Do I have recs? Hells yeah, I have recs.
Suzannah’s Henry VIII and His Six Wives; Henry and Anne: The Lovers Who Changed History; Secrets of the Manor House.
Basically ANY of Lucy Worsley’s, some of which are series and some standalone. Six Wives (about the Henry VIII’s wives and the mispresentations of them), British History’s Biggest Fibs; A Very British Murder (I’m also reading her book on that at the moment); Harlots, Housewives and Heroines; Tales From The Royal Bedchamber; Empire of the Tsars. I mean, anything from her IMDB will satisfy you.
Kate Williams (who actually appeared in Hidden Killers) tends to appear as a talking head but has a few docs of her own like The Queen’s Longest Reign: Elizabeth and Victoria.
Bettany Hughes has that serene nature that Suzannah has and Wiki lists her television docs. The one on Atlantis was good.
The scientist Alice Roberts (and her lovely Bristol accent) is fantastic. Any of the Horizon episodes she did, Sex: A Horizon Guide in particular. Prehistoric Autopsy; Woolly Mammoth: Secrets from the Ice; How To Build A Dinosaur; The Incredible Human Journey; Origins of Us.
And all of them come generally from a feminist perspective even when the docs themselves aren’t about feminism. They have an empathy for the women they speak about.
Also, you may remember in an older comment thread people talking about Sue Perkins and Giles Coren in Supersizers where they eat their way through different eras of diet. So funny and interesting. Real feelgood tv.
@Lucy YOU ARE MY EVERYTHING, HON!!! THANK YOU!!!
I just did so much note taking that I swear I was having school flashbacks, LOL. I will definitely be checking some of that stuff out because documentaries are my crack, second only to romance novels and romance Asian dramas. Wait. That’s “third.” God I suck at math.
You’re welcome! Ruth Goodman is another presenter, by the way. If you like documentaries just generally, not just history ones, Storyville and Horizon are excellent series which have been running for years. Enjoy!