Mrs Beeton's Every Day Cookery and Housekeeping Book (1893)

Entirely New Edition, Revised and Greatly Enlarged, published by Ward Lock,  London, 1893, hardcover, illustrated, 568 pages, condition: good.

Mrs. Beeton's is an extensive guide to running a household in Victorian Britain, edited by Isabella Beeton and first published as a book in 1861.The recipes were highly structured, in contrast to those in earlier cookbooks. It was illustrated with many monochrome and colour plates. Although Mrs. Beeton died in 1865, the book continued to be a best-seller. The first editions after her death contained an obituary notice, but later editions did not, allowing readers to imagine that every word was written by an experienced Mrs. Beeton personally.

The book expanded steadily in length until by 1907 it reached 74 chapters and over 2,000 pages. Nearly two million copies were sold by 1868, and as of 2016 it remains in print. Between 1875 and 1914 it was probably the most often-consulted cookery book. 

Mrs. Beeton has been described as "the grandmother of modern domestic goddesses", like Nigella Lawson and Delia Smith, who saw, as Beeton did, the need to provide reassuring advice on culinary matters for the British middle classes. However, while Lawson and Smith "insist that cooking can be easy, fun and uncomplicated", Beeton "acknowledges the labour and skill required to cook well"

The Oxford English Dictionary recognised that, by the 1890s, Beeton's name "was adopted as a term for an authority on all things domestic and culinary". The Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Science observed that "it was probably found in more homes than any other cookery book, and [was probably] the most often consulted, in the years 1875 to 1914"