I MUST frankly own, that if I had known, beforehand, that this book would have cost me the
labour which 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 …

A founding text of Victorian middle-class identity, Household Management is today one of
the great unread classics. Over a thousand pages long, and written when its author was only
22, it offered highly authoritative advice on subjects as diverse as fashion, child-care, animal
husbandry, poisons, and the management of servants. To the modern reader expecting
stuffy moralizing and watery vegetables, Beeton's book is a revelation: it ranges widely
across the foods of Europe and beyond, actively embracing new foodstuffs and techniques …