On this day, the complete version of “Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management“, consisting of 24 previously issued monthly instalments, was first published and quickly became one of the major editorial events of the nineteenth century, selling 60,000 copies in its first year of publication and totalling nearly two million by 1868. Most of the book is dedicated to recipes with the remainder providing advice on fashion, child care, animal husbandry, poisons, the management of servants, science, religion, first aid and the importance in the use of local and seasonal produce. Although criticised by some for plagiarism – many of the recipes were copied from the most successful cookery books of the day – the book continued to be a much-consulted best-seller and was still in print in 2016.
Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management
1st October 1861