Will be held in the Boardroom, Lvl 5, Fisher Library, University of Sydney, and online by Zoom. Please email: [email protected] for the link.
Tim White, antiquarian bookseller, co-owner with his wife of Books for Cooks will speak on:
“Meet Mrs Beeton: the story of The Book of Household Management and its bibliographic challenges”
Isabella Beeton’s The Book of Household Management was an iconic Victorian cookery book that redefined its genre, spawned many imitators and became a culinary and publishing phenomenon. Despite its iconic status, the story of its creation and subsequent publishing is not well known. Beeton family history and intrigue, decades of anonymous editorship, the procession over 100 years of innumerable variants, versions and editions and the destruction of publishing archives during WWII have all contributed to a lack of understanding about this influential work that defined the Victorian (and thus Australian) household and diet. Tim will explore Isabella Beeton’s story, the book’s convoluted publishing history and examine bibliographically various incarnations of “Mrs Beeton’s Book”
Tim is Vice President of ANZAAB and the convenor of the Melbourne Rare Book Fair which will be held 30 July – 1 August 2026.
All welcome. Refreshments will be served at the venue.