Lucy Lethbridge
Still Cooking Up A Storm
The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton
By Kathryn Hughes
Fourth Estate 485pp £20
It was Elizabeth David who first pointed out that Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management, that mid-nineteenth-century volume which more than any other had come to represent the values of domestic order and nourishment, was a collection of borrowings from another, earlier, real cook: Eliza Acton. In fact, Isabella Beeton had shamelessly snipped, clipped, cut and lifted not only from Acton but also from Alexis Soyer, Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, Antonin Carême and many others. All it took was some tweaking and rearranging of the originals and a journalist in her mid-twenties could convey in print the brisk yet kindly voice of a matronly, middle-aged woman who ranged over her subjects with the authority that came from years of experience. Kathryn Hughes writes sternly: ‘Depending on your own intellectual confidence, the end result was either terribly clever or the sort of thing constructed by a particularly conscientious schoolgirl.’
But revelations of plagiarism, as well as the more serious charge that The Book of Household Management condemned English cooking for generations to be characterised by over-boiled vegetables and tapioca puddings, have not dented the brand allure of Mrs Beeton. In this splendid book, a biography which brings alive the
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
London's East End was long synonymous with poverty and sweatshops, while its West End was associated with glamour and high society. But when it came to the fashion industry, were the differences really so profound?
Sharman Kadish - Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers
Sharman Kadish: Winkle-pickers & Bum Freezers - Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style; Fashion City: ...
literaryreview.co.uk
In 1982, Donald Rumsfeld presented Saddam Hussein with a pair of golden spurs. Two decades later he was dropping bunker-busting bombs on his palaces.
Where did the US-Iraqi relationship go wrong?
Rory Mccarthy - The Case of the Vanishing Missiles
Rory Mccarthy: The Case of the Vanishing Missiles - The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the United States and the ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Barbara Comyns was a dog breeder, a house painter, a piano restorer, a landlady... And a novelist.
@nclarke14 on the lengths 20th-century women writers had to go to make ends meet:
Norma Clarke - Her Family & Other Animals
Norma Clarke: Her Family & Other Animals - Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence by Avril Horner
literaryreview.co.uk