Kathryn Hughes is the author of George Eliot: The Last Victorian, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography, and The Victorian Governess, which remains the standard text on the subject. Educated at Oxford University, she holds a Ph.D. in Victorian studies and now teaches biographical studies at the University of East Anglia. She is a Guardian book critic.
“Magnificent.”
–The New Yorker
“A triumph . . . Hughes knows 19th-century England intimately . . .
the result is a narrative that could have come straight from
Trollope. Vicars and curates, tradesmen’s families edging up the
social ladder, tangled marriage plots–for lovers of Barsetshire,
it’s all here.”
–Laura Shapiro, The New York Times Book Review
“Peppy . . . Smart . . . Tells vivid personal stories . . . The
author’s intelligence never deserts her.”
–Wendy Smith, Washington Post Book World
“Enthralling . . . Having read Ms. Hughes, one wants immediately to
read Beeton . . . [Beeton] speaks to the universal condition of
female life.”
–Barbara Amiel, Wall Street Journal
“Absorbing . . . Excellent . . . Nostalgia for handmade items,
worry over adulterated food, a healthy market for cookbooks . . .
We have a lot in common with the early Victorian era, at least with
regard to broad trends toward domesticity.”
–Benjamin Lytal, The New York Sun
“Scrupulously researched, definitive . . . Mrs. Beeton emerges as a
fascinating blend of Betty Crocker and Emily Post, with a little
Martha Stewart or Nigella Lawson thrown in for good measure . . .
Hughes’s searching social eye does wonders with the small cache of
letters between Isabella and Sam, written during their courtship .
. . She constructs a detailed picture of fashions and social
customs at the high-water mark of the Victorian age. For readers of
Dickens and Trollope, this section of the book is pure gold.”
–William Grimes, The New York Times
“A terrific book, filled with astute observation and telling detail
about the growth of an idea, or fantasy, of domesticity . . . Later
in life, [my mother] would sit around reading a facsimile edition
of ‘Beeton’s Book of Household Management’ the way another sort of
person might read pornography . . . My mind reels when I think of
what she would have thought had she lived to read The Short Life
and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton . . . Mrs. Beeton, a syphilitic
plagiarist? Golly. But in case you think I have just given away the
whole story, I assure you, I haven’t.”
–Katherine A. Powers, The Boston Globe
“Lively and authoritative.”
–Entertainment Weekly, graded A
“One of my favourite biographies of the year . . . a lively and
fascinating reconstruction of the ‘real’ Isabella Beeton, unpicking
her extraordinary posthumous legend with great skill, opening a
wide window on to Victorian domestic and publishing history, and
wearing its excellent sleuthing with a light grace.”
–Hermione Lee, The Guardian
“There is seemingly no aspect of Victorian life that Kathryn Hughes
cannot assimilate and understand from the inside. This is living
history, in which massive research and impeccable scholarship is
handled with invigorating panache . . with verve and humor . . .
This great gift of a book . . . makes us savour aspects of
19th-century life in order to sharpen our awareness of how we live
now.”
–Frances Spalding, The Independent
“Splendid . . . A brilliant biography, which tells the absorbing,
strange and sad story with great aplomb . . . You know that Kathryn
Hughes would write a wonderful novel.”
–Philip Hensher, The Spectator
“Accomplished and hugely readable . . . Depicts the worlds of the
Beetons with astonishing vividness and colour . . . with subtlety
and precision . . . Much more than a biography, it is like a
version in prose of a magnificent Victorian narrative painting,
packed full of the strange, swarming richness of life.”
–Lucy Lethbridge, Literary Review
“A wonderful book, so masterful and scholarly, so detailed and
wise, there will never need to be another. Hughes is an elegant
writer and a capable digger; no stone, however small or
inaccessible, is left unturned . . . She has done sterling
work.”
–Rachel Cooke, The Observer
“Intelligent . . . Thoughtful . . . Elegantly written.”
–Lucy Hughes-Hallet, Sunday Times
“Brilliant . . . Excellent . . . A fascinating reconstruction.”
–Nicola Humble, The Saturday Guardian
“It is a testament to Hughes’s wry intelligence that she can make
Mrs. Beeton’s sad and sometimes grotesque story so enjoyable to
read.”
–Bee Wilson, New Statesman
“Altogether fascinating . . . Leaves very few corners of the
mid-Victorian domestic interior unswept. From one angle it is a
kind of history of the early woman’s magazine; from another a
re-imagined users’ guide to Crimea-era domestic service. The
amateur student of venereology will find much in it to relish and
the historian of the Victorian pub will not be disappointed. At its
heart, though lie the two equally vivid figures of Isabella Mayson
and the man she married.”
–D.J. Taylor, The Independent on Sunday
“Illuminating . . . Kathryn Hughes deploys considerable gifts.”
–Matthew Sturgis, The Sunday Telegraph
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