Hostname: page-component-8678677fb7-89zkc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-10-16T17:13:44.176Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A COMMON COMPLAINT: DINING AT THE REFORM CLUB

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 2008

Helen Day
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

When Isabella Beeton wrote in her Preface to Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (1861) that, in order to compete with the attractions of clubs, well-ordered taverns and dining-houses that serve men so well, the mistress must be conversant with cookery and all other arts of making and keeping a comfortable home, she was making use of a narrative that would have been familiar to many of her readers. Both male and female writers of etiquette and cookery books aimed at the bourgeoisie attempted to persuade their readers of the necessity of household management by drawing on this narrative.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 36 , Issue 2 , September 2008 , pp. 507 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

WORKS CITED

Beeton, Mrs Isabella. Ed. Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. London: S. O. Beeton, 1861.Google Scholar
Bell, Bill. “Smith, George Murray (1824–1901).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004 online ed., Oct 2006. 17 Feb 2008. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/36138.Google Scholar
Brandon, Ruth. The People's Chef: Alexis Soyer, A Life in Seven Courses. West Sussex: Wiley, 2004.Google Scholar
Brillat-Savarin, Jean-Anthelme. The Physiology of Taste [La Physiologie du Goût]. 1825. Trans. Drayton, Anne. London: Penguin, 1994.Google Scholar
Calder, Jenni. The Victorian Home. London: Batsford, 1977.Google Scholar
Chambers, Amelia. The Ladies Best Companion; or, A Golden Treasury for the Fair Sex. London: J. Cooke, c1800.Google Scholar
“Coffee Room Complaints Book (1837–1842).” Reform Club Archives. London, 1837–1842. Referred to throughout as “Complaints Book.”Google Scholar
Cowell, F. R.The Athenaeum. London: Heinemann, 1975.Google Scholar
Cunningham, Peter. Hand-book of London. 2nd ed. London: Murray, 1850. 20 Oct. 2005. http://www.victorianlondon.org.Google Scholar
Cruchley, George. London in 1865: A Handbook for Strangers. London: Cruchley, 1865. 20 Oct. 2005. http://www.victorianlondon.org.Google Scholar
Davenport-Hines, Richard. “Smith, William Henry (1825–1891).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, Sept 2004 online ed., Jan 2008. 17 Feb 2008. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25938.Google Scholar
Forster, M. “Letter of complaint from M Forster MP, 3rd Jan 1852.” Reform Club Archives. London, 1852.Google Scholar
Glanville, Philippa, and Young, Hilary, eds. Elegant Eating: Four Hundred Years of Dining in Style. London: Victoria and Albert, 2002.Google Scholar
Gloag, John. Victorian Comfort: A Social History of Design 1830–1900. Newton Abbot: David and Charles, 1979.Google Scholar
Horn, Pamela. The Rise and Fall of the Victorian Servant. Gloucestershire: Sutton, 2000.Google Scholar
Mars, Valerie R. “Ordering Dinner: Victorian celebratory domestic dining in London.” Diss. Leicester U, 1997.Google Scholar
Mennell, Stephen. All Manners of Food: Eating and Taste in England and France from the Middle Ages to the Present. 2nd ed. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1996.Google Scholar
Newcomb, Rev. Harvey. Home and Its Associations. Edinburgh: Gall & Ingles, c.1860.Google Scholar
“Our Domestic Woes. The Servantgalism of the Period or The Alphabet of Woes.” The Lady's Own Paper 5 (1870); 335 in Victorian Women's Magazines: An Anthology. Ed. Margaret Beetham and Kay Boardman. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2001. 111–14.Google Scholar
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press, Sept 2004 online ed., Jan 2008. 17 Feb 2008. http://www.oxforddnb.com.Google Scholar
Pascoe, Charles. London of Today. London: Simpkin, 1890.Google Scholar
Phiz (H. K. Browne). London at Dinner, or Where to Dine. London: Robert Hardwicke, 1858.Google Scholar
“Provision Accounts, Report of Secretary, Nov 1841.” Reform Club Archives. London, November 1841.Google Scholar
Ray, Elizabeth. Alexis Soyer Cook Extraordinary. East Sussex: Southover, 1991.Google Scholar
Rossi-Wilcox, Susan M. Dinner for Dickens: The Culinary History of Mrs Charles Dickens's Menu Books including a transcript of “What Shall We Have For Dinner?” by “Lady Maria Clutterbuck.” Totnes: Prospect Books, 2005.Google Scholar
Sala, George Augustus. Twice Around the Clock, or The Hours of the Day and Night in London. London: Houlston and Wright, 1859.Google Scholar
Seaman, L. C. B.Life in Victorian England. London: B. T. Batsford, 1973.Google Scholar
Selby, Charles. The Dinner Question or How to Dine Well & Economically by Tabitha Tickletooth. London: Routledge, Warne and Routledge, 1860.Google Scholar
Sheppard, Francis. London 1808–1870. London: Secker and Warburg, 1971.Google Scholar
Soyer, Alexis, The Gastronomic Regenerator. 2nd ed. London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1846.Google Scholar
Soyer, Alexis. The Modern Housewife. 1849. London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co, 1851.Google Scholar
St George, Andrew. The Descent of Manners: Etiquette, Rules and the Victorians. London: Chatto & Windus, 1993.Google Scholar
Thackeray, William Makepeace. The Book of Snobs. 1848. London: Bradbury and Evans, 1855.Google Scholar
Tosh, John. A Man's Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England. New Haven: Yale UP, 1999.Google Scholar
Volant, F., and Warren, J. R., eds. Memoirs of Alexis Soyer. London: W. Kent, 1859.Google Scholar
Weale, John. The Pictorial Handbook of London. London: H. G. Bohn, 1854.Google Scholar
Whiting, Sydney. Memoirs of a Stomach. London: W. E. Painter, 1853.Google Scholar