24 Facts About Isabella Beeton

Isabella Beeton 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.

In 1857, less than a year after the wedding, Isabella Beeton began writing for one of her husband's publications, The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine.

Isabella Beeton translated French fiction and wrote the cookery column, though all the recipes were plagiarised from other works or sent in by the magazine's readers.

Isabella Beeton was working on an abridged version of her book, which was to be titled The Dictionary of Every-Day Cookery, when she died of puerperal fever in February 1865 at the age of 28.

Isabella Beeton gave birth to four children, two of whom died in infancy, and had several miscarriages.

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Isabella Beeton is considered a strong influence in the building or shaping of a middle-class identity of the Victorian era.

Isabella Beeton Mayson was born on 14 March 1836 in Marylebone, London.

Isabella Beeton died when Isabella was four years old, and Elizabeth, pregnant and unable to cope with raising the children on her own while maintaining Benjamin's business, sent her two elder daughters to live with relatives.

Isabella Beeton went to live with her recently widowed paternal grandfather in Great Orton, Cumberland, though she was back with her mother within the next two years.

Isabella Beeton was instrumental in her siblings' upbringing, and collectively referred to them as a "living cargo of children".

Isabella Beeton became proficient in the piano and excelled in French and German; she gained knowledge and experience in making pastry.

Isabella Beeton had returned to Epsom by the summer of 1854 and took further lessons in pastry-making from a local baker.

Around 1854 Isabella Mayson began a relationship with Samuel Orchart Beeton.

The couple entered into extensive correspondence in 1855—in which Isabella Beeton signed her letters as "Fatty"—and they announced their engagement in June 1855.

Isabella Beeton began by translating French fiction for publication as stories or serials.

Isabella Beeton brought an efficiency and strong business acumen to Samuel's normally disorganised and financially wasteful approach.

Isabella Beeton joined her husband at work, travelling daily by train to the office, where her presence caused a stir among commuters, most of whom were male.

Isabella Beeton was impressed with the food they were served, and wrote in her diary that the dinners were "conducted in quite the French style".

Isabella Beeton included an extensive 26-page "Analytical Index" in the book.

Christopher Clausen, in his study of the British middle classes, sees that Isabella Beeton "reflected better than anyone else, and for a larger audience, the optimistic message that mid-Victorian England was filled with opportunities for those who were willing to learn how to take advantage of them".

The critic for the London Evening Standard considered that Isabella Beeton had earned herself a household reputation, remarking that she had "succeeded in producing a volume which will be, for years to come, a treasure to be made much of in every English household".

In March 1863 Isabella Beeton found that she was pregnant again, and in April the couple moved to a house in Greenhithe, Kent; their son, who they named Orchart, was born on New Year's Eve 1863.

Dickson Wright considers Isabella Beeton to be a "fascinating source of information" from a social history viewpoint, and Aylett and Ordish consider the work to be "the best and most reliable guide for the scholar to the domestic history of the mid-Victorian era".

Isabella Beeton was ignored by the Dictionary of National Biography for many years: while Acton was included in the first published volume of 1885, Isabella Beeton did not have an entry until 1993.