I understand she died of syphilis and wrote about how to manage the servants, though she never actually had any.

I saw a write up of this bio in the Boston Globe and it sounds fascinating. On my TBR list.

The accusation that Mrs. Beeton "plagiarized" is not meaningful to most readers of cook books. Virtually every cookbook is made up of recipes obtained from other cooks. A great cook book writer is really just a compiler, organizing recipes in such a way that they are new to his or her readers. I honestly can not think of a single great cook book writer, whether it be Jane Grigson, Elizabeth David, etc., whose books are not a revival of those successful recipes from the past which deserve a closer look. Each recipe in one of my all-time favourite cook books, Grigson's English Food, is preceded by a brief history of the dish, with its originator scrupulously cited.

The history of preparing food is a just really a vast amount of accumulated knowledge, traded by cooks, and passed down from generation to generation. Too many innovations and the food becomes inedible. Each new cook picks up a sense of what works, and what doesn't, from other cooks. Consider the source of your favourite standby recipes. Each one has been "plagiarized" from either a cook book, or another cook.

Beeton may not have been the ideal housewife, but so what? She presented an enormous amount of information in an innovative way which was useful to cooks and housekeepers of all classes. Her recipes and household advice were so trusted and reliable that they were successfully transplanted all over the Empire.

Might it be that is not the lady herself who is under attack, but iconic status as a woman who embodies the womanly ideals of a bygone era?

This thread has reminded me that I have an, as yet, unread book Mrs Beeton and her Husband by Nancy Spain (a descendent of that family) which looks quite promising.
We used to have a huge old copy of her Book of Household Management wonderful to dip into and far more in it than recipes. Lots of useful tips on how to clean carpets, care for invalids, deal with servants etc. It gives a fascinating picture of mid-Victorian life.

re: timallen-'too true-I don't think Heloise came up with all her hints alone either! It was a service just to gather them in one place.

The Boston Globe had review in Sunday's paper which gives a fuller picture. Basically, she was a marketing genius.

I don't think the book attacks her or her iconic status, just tries to give a true portrait of who she was - not a cook and housekeeper, but a brilliant business woman.

Of course, I still haven't read it yet...

Here is a link that might be useful: Boston Globe review

I understand all these things. It's just that I had a mental picture of Mrs. Beeton as a plump woman in her fifties, with white curly hair, with a large white apron...the sort of person who everyone in the kitchen loves but is a little afraid of...

Quite unrealistic. But it comes as a shock to find out just HOW wrong my assumptions were....

Good marketing is nothing new, it seems.

Mrs. Beeton, who was a household name for over a century, died when she was only 28. Another example of Fame's ironic trade-off's.

I've always wondered if her publisher-husband remarried, or if her family were able to enjoy the financial rewards of her work. The royalities of Victorian "sensation" novelist, Mrs. Henry Wood (famous for East Lynne), kept her children well-off financially long after the lady herself was called home. I wonder if the same holds true for Isabella Beeton's two sons. Sounds like I should read that darn biography afterall...

Tim, I was interested by your questions on Mrs B and did a quick search on the UK census of 1871 and 1881. Sam Beeton never married again and died in his 40's of TB, still beset with money problems. Their two surviving sons were brought up by a family friend, a Mrs Mathilda Browne the editress of the Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine and later were educated at Marlborough College. Both boys married and lived into their 80's.
The book by Nancy Spain, IB's Great Niece and well-known BBC broadcaster, written in 1948, needless to say, makes no mention of syphilis as a cause of death . . .why is it that modern writers always seem to feel the need to look under stones to find unpleasant and unlikely facts?
She certainly did have servants, but not many as the family never had much money.

Veer,

Thank you very much for digging around and finding out what happened to Isabella Beeton's family. I had no idea that her husband also died young.

I also had no idea that Nancy Spain was related to Mrs. Beeton. I seem to recall that Spain was a celebrated wit, and was one of those amusing "bright young thing' writers of the Twenties and Thirties. I wonder if any of her books are still in print.

The New York Times has a review under Browsing Books. Go to Editors' Choice and look for The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton by Kathryn Hughes. Sounds like a good read.

Here is a link that might be useful: The New York Times