Before Mrs Beeton

Name: Before Mrs Beeton: Elizabeth Raffald, England's Most Influential Housekeeper
Price: 20.60 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Neil Buttery
ISBN: 9781399084475

Elizabeth Raffald, England's Most Influential Housekeeper

The great Elizabeth Raffald used to be a household name. After becoming housekeeper at Arley Hall in Cheshire at age 25, she married and moved to Manchester, transforming the food scene and business community, by writing the first A to Z directory and creating the first domestic servants registry office — the first temping agency if you will. She set up a cookery school and ran a high class tavern. She reputedly gave birth to sixteen daughters, wrote book on midwifery, and was an effective exorciser of evil spirits.

Her biggest achievement was her cookery book The Experienced English Housekeeper. Published in 1769, it ran to over twenty editions and brought her fame and fortune. And then disaster; her fortune lost, spent by her alcoholic husband. She spent her final years in a pokey coffeehouse in a seedy part of town. Her book, however, remained influentia, often imitated (but never bettered), a must-have volume for any British kitchen.

To tell Elizabeth’s tumultuous rise and fall story, historian Neil Buttery doesn’t just delve into the history of food in the 18th century. In this compelling biography, he looks at trade and empire, domestic service, the paranormal, the agricultural revolution, women’s rights, publishing and copyright law, gentlemen’s clubs and societies, the horse races, and the defeminization of midwifery, all while capturing the life of this little-known figure.