Wordsworth Reference
2 total works
Isabella Beeton was born in 1836, the eldest of twenty-one children, and died at the age twenty-eight. Despite the shortness of her life she managed to produce not only her world-famous book of Household Management but also this lesser known but equally comprehensive book of Garden Management. The subjects covered are familiar to all those who read modern journalism and books on gardening or watch gardening programmes on television: soil structures, manures and compost, planning and landscaping, walls and fences, ornamental features, tools, sowing, planting and transplanting. There are chapters on trees, shrubs, flowers, vegetables, herbs and fruit growing; on frames and glasshouses; and finally twelve chapters covering the gardening year.
Mrs Beeton first published Household Management and Garden Management in the 1860s at a time when Victorian middle-class families had money to spend but little or no previous experience of owning or managing houses and gardens. Mrs Beeton's guidance proved extremely useful and popular. Her information and wisdom were so sound that many of her precepts remained 'rules' well into the middle of the twentieth century. Mrs Beeton's Garden Management is not only packed with horticultural advice on the use of traditional methods - always with an eye to new ideas - but it is also a social document providing an insight into the art of gardening as it was so enthusiastically practised in the past.
Mrs Beeton first published Household Management and Garden Management in the 1860s at a time when Victorian middle-class families had money to spend but little or no previous experience of owning or managing houses and gardens. Mrs Beeton's guidance proved extremely useful and popular. Her information and wisdom were so sound that many of her precepts remained 'rules' well into the middle of the twentieth century. Mrs Beeton's Garden Management is not only packed with horticultural advice on the use of traditional methods - always with an eye to new ideas - but it is also a social document providing an insight into the art of gardening as it was so enthusiastically practised in the past.
A classic of domestic literature, Isabella Beeton's Book of Household Management is both an entertaining curiosity and an important social document, providing an invaluable insight into the day-to-day workings of a Victorian household. Encyclopaedic in its range, the book contains 2,751 entries covering (besides its countless recipes) advice on childbirth, fashion, home remedies, animal husbandry and the management of servants, and even dealing with the sensitive subjects of violence, cruelty, illness and death, and contentious issues still current, such as factory farming.
Born in 1836, the eldest of twenty-one children, Isabella's upbringing was far from conventional and she was never the stately matron of our imaginings. She was already a working journalist when at the age of twenty-one she began to write her epic work in the form of magazine supplements; these were published in the famous single volume of 1861. When she died at only twenty-eight her book had already met with phenomenal success and to this day it remains legendary the world over.
Born in 1836, the eldest of twenty-one children, Isabella's upbringing was far from conventional and she was never the stately matron of our imaginings. She was already a working journalist when at the age of twenty-one she began to write her epic work in the form of magazine supplements; these were published in the famous single volume of 1861. When she died at only twenty-eight her book had already met with phenomenal success and to this day it remains legendary the world over.