Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management

London: Ward Lock & Co., Limited, 1913. An interesting look at life in a Victorian household, and the running of it

BEETON, Isabella Mrs. The Book of Household Management. Comprising information for the Mistress, Housekeeper, Cook, Kitchen Maid, Butler, Footman etc., etc. Entirely New edition. Revised, corrected and greatly enlarged... London: Ward Lock & Co., Limited, 1899.

Thick octavo (7 5/8 x 4 7/8 inches; 194 x 121 mm.). [xlviii], [4, ads],[1]-1644, [40, advertisements] pp. Thirteen color plates, numerous black & white plates and illustrations in the text.

Publisher's quarter red morocco over green cloth boards, spine richly decorated in gilt, yellow coated endpapers with printed advertisements. Expertly rebacked with original spine laid down. Neat ink signature dated 1900 on half-title. A very good copy.

This 1899 "Entirely New...greatly enlarged" edition represents one of the most substantial late nineteenth-century reworkings of Beeton's classic, reflecting the evolution of domestic practice in the decades following the author's death in 1865. By this stage, Household Management had passed through numerous publishers and editors, each expanding and modernizing the text to suit contemporary tastes and advances in cookery, household technology, and middle-class domestic life.

Isabella Beeton's comprehensive guide to cookery, with a wide variety of recipes, advice for the organization of kitchens and larders, marketing, and a calendar of food in season. She also gave advice on table decorations, how to wait a table, how to set a table, and how to carve meats and fish. Some of the recipes included vary from meat, poultry, salads, tarts, cold sweets, sandwiches, bread, jams, and icing. She played a pivotal role in shaping Victorian notions of household management and became an influential guide for generations. This is an interesting look at life in a Victorian and then an Edwardian household, and the running of it. It remains a valuable historical document, offering insights into the daily lives and cultural values of the 19th-century middle-class households.

Isabella Mary Beeton (1836-1865), known as Mrs Beeton, was an English journalist, editor and writer. Her name is particularly associated with her first book, the 1861 work Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. She was born in London and, after schooling in Islington, north London, and Heidelberg, Germany, she married Samuel Orchart Beeton, an ambitious publisher and magazine editor. In 1857, less than a year after the wedding, Beeton began writing for one of her husband's publications, The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine. She translated French fiction and wrote the cookery column, though all the recipes were plagiarized from other works or sent in by the magazine's readers. In 1859 the Beetons launched a series of 48-page monthly supplements to The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine; the 24 instalments were published in one volume as Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management in October 1861, which sold 60,000 copies in the first year.