How to Behave

How important is a good hatter? Is it acceptable for a gentleman to dance with his wife in public? What are the best topics for conversation? In How to Behave, Thomas Low Nichols guides the reader through the basics of gentility. From ?care of the person’ to finding one’s vocation, from love to deportment, the learned author offers his expert advice on how to conduct every aspect of daily life. Originally published in 1873, this version features a foreword from the UK’s leading etiquette expert, William Hanson, and offers an entertaining and whimsical insight into society in the late nineteenth century. However, today’s reader can also learn much from the author’s timeless advice and styling ? take heed!

Thomas Low Nichols (1815?1901) was a prominent journalist and reformer born in New Hampshire. He began studying medicine at Dartmouth College but later abandoned this for journalism, serving apprenticeships at newspapers in New York and Lowell. He married Mary Gove in 1848, and the couple settled in London during the American Civil War. He is the author of several books on food reform, as well as writing Forty Years of American Life, one of the most important accounts of American life in the nineteenth century.