Isabella Mary Beeton, known as Mrs Beeton, was an English journalist, editor and writer. Her name is particularly associated with her first book, the 1861 work Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. She was born in London and, after schooling in Islington, north London, and Heidelberg, Germany, she married Samuel Orchart Beeton, an ambitious publisher and magazine editor.
Isabella Beeton (née Mayson), photographed in about 1854.
Cheapside, London, where Isabella and her family moved in 1836
The new race stand at Epsom Racecourse in 1829
Samuel Orchart Beeton in 1860
Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management
Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, also published as Mrs. Beeton's Cookery Book, is an extensive guide to running a household in Victorian Britain, edited by Isabella Beeton and first published as a book in 1861. Previously published in parts, it initially and briefly bore the title Beeton's Book of Household Management, as one of the series of guidebooks published by her husband, Samuel Beeton. The recipes were highly structured, in contrast to those in earlier cookbooks. It was illustrated with many monochrome and colour plates.
Title page: the first edition did not use the "Mrs." of later editions.
Presentation of fish dishes: filleted soles, boiled salmon, cod's head and shoulders
First page of the first chapter of Book of Household Management
Full-page 1907 colour plate of types of fish to buy from the fishmonger: red mullet, grayling, John Dory, mackerel, cod, whiting, salmon, herring, plaice, flounder, gurnet, crayfish