The Best of Mrs Beeton's Household Tips

by Isabella Beeton

This helpful handbook brings together a selection of Mrs. Beeton's wisdom, which has provided practical advice to many generations in their first attempts at running their own homes. It is full of guidance on everything from cleaning, laundry, home maintenance, and health to childcare, social custom, etiquette, and money management—information to help people live, in Isabella Beeton's own words, "economically, tastefully, and well." 

Genres: Nonfiction, Cooking, Reference

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Isabella Mary Beeton (née Mayson), universally known as Mrs Beeton, was the English author of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, and is one of the most famous cookery writers.

Popularly known as "Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management", it was a guide to running a Victorian household, with advice on fashion, childcare, animal husbandry, poisons, the management of servants, science, religion, and industrialism.

Of the 1,112 pages, over 900 contained recipes, such that another popular name for the volume is "Mrs Beeton's Cookbook". Most of the recipes were illustrated with coloured engravings, and it was the first book to show recipes in a format that is still used today. It is said that many of the recipes were actually plagiarised from earlier writers (including Eliza Acton), but the Beetons never claimed that the book's contents were original. It was intended as a guide of reliable information for the aspirant middle classes. Mrs Beeton is perhaps described better as its compiler and editor than as its author, many of the passages clearly being not her own words.

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok book

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

While useful it lacks the charm of the original Mrs Beeton; modernisation has done it little favour.