Isabella Beeton • Vol. 19: #26 • (6-25-2023) Tidbits of Coachella Valley

• In 1852, British publisher Samuel Beeton purchased the British rights to the book “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” directly from the author, Harriot Beecher Stowe. The American version of the book became the first book in the U.S. to sell more than one million copies. In Britain, the book also sold extremely well.

• This gave Samuel Beeton enough capital to expand his publishing business. He began two different periodicals, both of which were very successful. One was “Boys Own Magazine” and the other was “The Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine.”

Samuel Beeton was a publisher in the 1800s.

• Samuel Beeton married Isabella Mayson in 1856, when she was 21. She had helped raise 13 younger siblings and had a good grasp on what it took to run a household. Samuel believed in women’s equality, and put her in charge of his ladies magazine. She began by printing recipes that she swiped from other cookbooks or that readers sent in. She innovated by printing the list of ingredients before the cooking instructions, an improvement which is now standard. She breathed life into the fashion column, and included dress patterns in the magazine.

• It became a very popular monthly magazine under Isabella’s editorial control. In 1861, they condensed two years’ worth of magazine articles into a book called “Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management,” which also bore the impressive sub-title: “Comprising information for the Mistress, Housekeeper, Cook, KitchenMaid, Butler, Footman, Coachman, Valet, Upper and Under House-Maids, Lady’s-Maid, Maid-of-all-Work, Laundry-Maid, Nurse and Nurse-Maid, Monthly Wet and Sick Nurses, etc. etc.—also Sanitary, Medical, & Legal Memoranda: with a History of the Origin, Properties, and Uses of all Things Connected with Home Life and Comfort.”

• Nearly two million copies of “Mrs. Beeton’s Household Management” were sold by 1868, becoming one of England’s top-selling books.

• Isabella Beeton actually had very little experience as a cook, and it showed in her questionable editing. For example, she recommended boiling pasta for an hour and forty-five minutes, and stated that mangoes tasted like turpentine. She declared lobsters to be indigestible, garlic offensive, and potatoes suspicious. She also claimed that cheese should only be eaten by sedentary people, and insisted that tomatoes should be avoided.

• New editions were introduced at intervals, and new guides were added as well, giving instructions on cooking, sewing, livestock care, natural history, and birdwatching.

A page with Breakfast and Tea China detail in "Mrs. Beeton's Household Management Book."

• Isabella had four children, two of which died in infancy. Isabella herself died of childbed fever shortly after her 4th child was born in 1865. She was 28 years old.

Isabella Beeton

• But “Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management” lived on long after her death. Most of the readers did not know she had died, and she became an iconic figure, similar to today's “Hints from Heloise.” Most assumed she was a middle-aged wealthy matron presiding over a high-class estate, and not a young woman from a lower-middle class background who died soon after the book became popular.

• Samuel Beeton’s fortunes faltered after the death of Isabella. He sold the copyright to the Beeton’s franchise to a larger publishing firm and went to work for them as a salaried employee. He died of tuberculosis in 1877 at the age of 47 and was buried next to his wife.

• “Beeton’s Book of Household Management,” now many times updated, revised, and edited, is still in print, and a Kindle version is available on Amazon. □