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Isabella Mary Beeton (née Mayson; 12 March 1836 – 6 February 1865), universally known as Mrs Beeton, was the principal author of Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management and is the most famous cookery writer in British history.

Contents 1 Background 2 Marriage and career 3 Book of Household Management 4 Early death 5 The Secret Life of Mrs Beeton 6 Gallery 7 Bibliography 8 References 9 External links

Isabella was born at 24 Milk Street, Cheapside, London. Her father, Benjamin Mayson, died when she was young. and her mother, Elizabeth Jerram, married again, to Henry Dorling. Isabella was sent to school in Heidelberg, Germany, where she became an accomplished pianist. Afterwards she returned to her stepfather's home in Epsom.

On a visit to London, she was introduced to Samuel Orchard Beeton, a publisher of books and popular magazines, whom she married on 10 July 1856. She began to write articles on cooking and household management for her husband's publications. In 1859–1861, she wrote a monthly supplement to The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine. In October 1861, the supplements were published as a single volume, The Book of Household Management Comprising information for the Mistress, Housekeeper, Cook, Kitchen-Maid, 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.

Popularly known as Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management, it was essentially a guide to running a Victorian household, with advice on fashion, childcare, animal husbandry, poisons, the management of servants, science, religion, and industrialism.

Of the 1,112 pages, over 900 contained recipes, such that another popular name for the volume is Mrs Beeton's Cookbook. Most of the recipes were illustrated with coloured engravings, and it was the first book to show recipes in a format that is still used today. It is said that many of the recipes were actually plagiarised from earlier writers (including Eliza Acton), but the Beetons never claimed that the book's contents were original. It was intended as a guide of reliable information for the aspirant middle classes. Mrs Beeton is perhaps described better as its compiler and editor than as its author, many of the passages clearly being not her own words.

After giving birth to her fourth child, in January 1865, Isabella contracted puerperal fever. She died a week later, aged 28. She is buried at West Norwood Cemetery under a simple headstone.

In 2006, BBC television broadcast a biographical drama, The Secret Life of Mrs Beeton ^[1], with Anna Madeley in the title role. This tended to emphasise Mrs Beeton's feminist credentials, as well as playing on the assumption that many viewers would have been unaware of her relative youth when she wrote her books and her early death.

The TV drama seemed to present as fact the speculation (put forth in Kathryn Hughes' biography) that Beeton suffered from syphilis contracted from her husband, and that this may have led to her death and those of her two children, although there is no firm evidence for this idea. It was directed by Jon Jones.

Fashion plate from The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine, 1869

Cover of Book of Household Management

First chapter of Book of Household Management

Illustration from Book of Household Management

• Susan Watkin: Know Your Onions or Mrs Beeton’s Hinterland, Lulu Press, 2006.
• Kathryn Hughes: The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton, 2005, ISBN 1-84115-374-5
• Margaret Beetham:A Magazine of Her Own?: Domesticity and Desire in the Woman’s Magazine, 1800-1914. London, 1996.
• Michael Hurd: Mrs Beeton’s Book, a Music-Hall Guide to Victorian Living, London, 1984.
• Sarah Freeman: Isabella and Sam: The Story of Mrs Beeton, London: Victor Gollancz, 1977.
• Elizabeth David: Isabella Beeton and Her Book, in: Wine and Food, Spring 1961.
• H. Montgomery Hyde: Mr. and Mrs. Beeton, London: George S. Harrap & Co, 1951.
• Nancy Spain: Mrs. Beeton and her husband by her grand niece, London: Collins, 1948. Later: Beeton Story (1956).

1. ^ BBC4: The Secret Life of Mrs Beeton

• Online edition of Household Management
• Works by Mrs Beeton at Project Gutenberg
• Searchable online version of Beeton's Book of Household Management
• Guardian article on "plagiarism"