Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management

Published in 1861, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management has been a benchmark guide for all aspects of running the middle class Victorian household. Written in the midst of the Industrial Revolution, Mrs. Beeton addressed a variety of issues relating to this historically transitional period. This included advice about cooking, child rearing, hygiene, servant’s pay, and much more. While certainly not a modern book on these topics, this guide provides great insights into the daily tasks of the 19th century. From the preface, “I must frankly own, that if I had known, beforehand, that this book would have cost me the labor that it has, I should never have been courageous enough to commence it. What moved me, in the first instance, to attempt a work like this, was the discomfort and suffering which I had seen brought upon men and women by household mismanagement. I have always thought that there is no more fruitful source of family discontent than a housewife's badly cooked dinners and untidy ways. Men are now so well served out of doors,—at their clubs, well-ordered taverns, and dining-houses, that in order to compete with the attractions of these places, a mistress must be thoroughly acquainted with the theory and practice of cookery, as well as be perfectly conversant with all the other arts of making and keeping a comfortable home.”