Sarah Freeman

According to biographer Sarah Freeman , IB began writing out of boredom with her married life and from a desire to participate in the excitement of her husband Samuel Beeton 's magazine business.

As it turned out, however, most of the recipes and information in the book came from published sources, though two popular cookery books directed at the middle classes, Hannah Glasse 's The Art of Cookery...

Many further editions, abridgements, and follow-up publications appeared in the following years, as Samuel Beeton and, following his failure, Ward, Lock and Co. capitalised on the book's success. As Sarah Freeman notes, later editions, which...