Kids Dish

I’ve been reading the Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton, by Kathryn Hughes. It’s a fascinating book, all about the history of the “real” Mrs Beeton and the publishing phenomenon that surrounded her. When the author started talking about the descendents of Mrs B and how they wanted to make sure her husband got due credit for his role in the Mrs Beeton brand, I thought, yeah yeah, just like Colette and whatsisname, right?

But it seems that “Mrs Beeton” - that is, the iconic figure - had an awful lot to do with Mr Beeton, who was an editor and publisher, and responsible for the distribution of the works written by and inspired by his wife Isabella. He had a few other successes in his publishing life too, primarily the English prints of the US bestseller Uncle Tom’s Cabin (which, copyright being quite dodgy in those days, he published without giving the author a cent).

Isabella Beeton herself is a fascinating character - she died in her late twenties, so was far from the matronly figure associated with Mrs B. To be honest, I wonder how much of that image comes from the other Mrs B - Mrs Bridges from Upstairs Downstairs? She’s mentioned in the book as embodying the Mrs Beeton image, but I wonder if she had an effect the other way around, too? Certainly *I* knew about Mrs Bridges before Mrs Beeton, and always assumed they had more in common than they did.

I’m still at early days in the book - Mrs Beeton is not yet Mrs Beeton - but the image I get is of a slender, strongwilled girl who grows up as the queen of the nursery - her mother and stepfather had between them about 30 children, and she was the oldest girl, so naturally spent most of her time looking after toddlers!

But the fascinating part of the book so far is the chapter on the courtship between Isabella and her Mr B - so many letters have survived, and we can read the highs and lows of their unsteady engagement, particularly her wounded feelings as he repeatedly withdraws his affection because he in turn is wounded by her family’s dislike of him. There is a passionate, funny and utterly absorbing truth to the story of their romance, conveyed beautifully through direct quotations and the summing up of years of correspondence. Brillant social history!

I’ve spent so much time in Ancient Rome that I forgot there was source material like that out there. Time to start playing in more recent pools of history…