Editing Isabella Beeton (section)

===Marriage and career, 1854–1861===
Around 1854 Isabella Mayson began a relationship with [[Samuel Orchart Beeton]]. His family had lived in Milk Street at the same time as the Maysons—Samuel's father still ran the Dolphin Tavern there—and Samuel's sisters had also attended the same Heidelberg school as Isabella.{{sfn|Hughes|2006|pp=67–68}}{{sfn|Spain|1948|p=48}} Samuel was the first British publisher of [[Harriet Beecher Stowe]]'s ''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'' in 1852 and had also released two innovative and pioneering journals: ''[[The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine]]'' in 1852 and the ''[[Boys' Own]]'' magazine in 1855.{{sfn|Beetham|2004}}{{sfn|Hughes|2006|p=101}} The couple entered into extensive correspondence in 1855—in which Isabella signed her letters as "Fatty"—and they announced their engagement in June 1855.{{sfn|Spain|1948|pp=63, 67}} The marriage took place at St Martin's Church, Epsom, in July the following year, and was announced in ''[[The Times]]''.<ref name="Times: Marriage" /> Samuel was "a discreet but firm believer in the equality of women"{{sfn|Freeman|1989|p=164}} and their relationship, both personal and professional, was an equal partnership.{{sfn|Beetham|2012}} The couple went to Paris for a three-week honeymoon, after which Samuel's mother joined them in a visit to Heidelberg. They returned to Britain in August, when the newlyweds moved into 2&nbsp;Chandos Villas, a large [[Italianate architecture|Italianate]] house in [[Pinner]].{{sfn|Freeman|1977|pp=127–29}}{{sfn|Nown|1986|pp=9–10, 14}}

[[File:Samuel Orchart Beeton.jpg|thumb|left|[[Samuel Orchart Beeton]] in 1860]]
Within a month of returning from their honeymoon Beeton was pregnant.{{sfn|Hughes|2006|p=157}} A few weeks before the birth, Samuel persuaded his wife to contribute to ''The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine'', a publication that the food writers Mary Aylett and Olive Ordish consider was "designed to make women content with their lot inside the home, not to interest them in the world outside".{{sfn|Aylett|Ordish|1965|p=224}} The magazine was affordable, aimed at young [[middle class]] women and was commercially successful, selling 50,000 issues a month by 1856.<ref name="BL: EDM" /> Beeton began by translating French fiction for publication as stories or serials.{{sfn|Forster-Walmsley|2013|loc=2587}} Shortly afterwards she started to work on the cookery column—which had been moribund for the previous six months following the departure of the previous correspondent—and the household article.{{sfn|Freeman|1977|p=164}}{{sfn|Nown|1986|p=23}} The Beetons' son, Samuel Orchart, was born towards the end of May 1857, but died at the end of August that year. On the death certificate, the cause of death was given as diarrhoea and cholera, although Hughes hypothesises that Samuel senior had unknowingly contracted [[syphilis]] in a premarital liaison with a prostitute, and had unwittingly passed the condition on to his wife, which would have infected his son.{{sfn|Hughes|2006|pp=181–83}}

While coping with the loss of her child, Beeton continued to work at ''The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine''. Although she was not a regular cook, she and Samuel obtained recipes from other sources. A request to receive the readers' own recipes led to over 2,000 being sent in, which were selected and edited by the Beetons. Published works were also copied, largely unattributed to any of the sources. These included [[Eliza Acton]]'s ''[[Modern Cookery for Private Families]]'',{{sfn|Hardy|2011|p=203}} [[Elizabeth Raffald]]'s ''[[The Experienced English Housekeeper]]'', [[Marie-Antoine Carême]]'s ''Le Pâtissier royal parisien'',<ref name="VPR: Broomfield" /> [[Louis Eustache Ude]]'s ''The French Cook'', [[Alexis Soyer]]'s ''The Modern Housewife or, Ménagère'' and ''The Pantropheon'', [[Hannah Glasse]]'s ''[[The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy]]'', [[Maria Rundell]]'s ''[[A New System of Domestic Cookery]]'', and the works of [[Charles Elmé Francatelli]].{{sfn|Hughes|2006|pp=198–201, 206–10}}<ref name="BL: Beeton" /><ref name="Guard: Brown" /> Suzanne Daly and Ross G. Forman, in their examination of Victorian cooking culture, consider that the plagiarism makes it "an important index of mid-Victorian and middle-class society" because the production of the text from its own readers ensures that it is a reflection of what was actually being cooked and eaten at the time.<ref name="VLC: Culture" /> In reproducing the recipes of others, Beeton was following the recommendation given to her by Henrietta English, a family friend, who wrote that "Cookery is a Science that is only learnt by Long Experience and years of study which of course you have not had. Therefore my advice would be compile a book from receipts from a Variety of the Best Books published on Cookery and Heaven knows there is a great variety for you to choose from."{{sfn|Spain|1948|p=115}}

[[Image:Edmsept1861.jpg|thumb|''[[The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine]]'', September 1861]]
The Beetons partly followed the layout of Acton's recipes, although with a major alteration: whereas the earlier writer provided the method of cooking followed by a list of the required ingredients, the recipes in ''The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine'' listed the components before the cooking process.{{sfn|Freeman|1977|p=76}}{{sfn|Paxman|2009|p=114}} Beeton 's standardised layout used for the recipes also showed the approximate costs of each serving, the seasonality of the ingredients and the number of portions per dish.{{sfn|Freeman|1989|p=165}} According to the twentieth-century British cookery writer [[Elizabeth David]], one of the strengths of Beeton's writing was in the "clarity and details of her general instructions, her brisk comments, her no-nonsense asides".<ref name="Spec: ED" /> [[Margaret Beetham]], the historian, sees that one of the strengths of the book was the "consistent principle of organisation which made its heterogeneous contents look uniform and orderly", and brought a consistent style in presentation and layout.<ref name="VLC: Beetham" /> Whereas Daly and Forman consider such an approach as "nothing if not formulaic", Hughes sees it as "the thing most beloved by the mid Victorians, ''a system''".{{sfn|Hughes|2006|p=261}}

During the particularly bitter winter of 1858–59 Beeton prepared her own soup that she served to the poor of Pinner, "Soup for benevolent purposes";{{efn|The soup—which took six and a half hours to make at the cost of {{frac|1|1|2}}d. ("d" was a penny, 1/240 of a pound sterling) per quart—consisted of:<br />"An ox-cheek, any pieces of trimmings of beef, which may be bought very cheaply (say 4&nbsp;lbs.), a few bones, any pot-liquor the larder may furnish, 1/4 peck of onions, 6 leeks, a large bunch of herbs, 1/2&nbsp;lb. of celery (the outside pieces, or green tops, do very well); 1/2&nbsp;lb. of carrots, 1/2&nbsp;lb. of turnips, 1/2&nbsp;lb. of coarse brown sugar, 1/2 a pint of beer, 4&nbsp;lbs. of common rice or pearl barley; 1/2&nbsp;lb. of salt, 1 oz. of black pepper, a few raspings, 10 gallons of water."{{sfn|Beeton|1861|p=65}}}} her sister later recalled that Beeton "was busy making [the] soup for the poor, and the children used to call with their cans regularly to be refilled".<ref name="Times: 1958" />{{sfn|Nown|1986|pp=41–42}} The recipe would become the only entry in her ''[[Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management|Book of Household Management]]'' that was her own.{{sfn|Snodgrass|2004|p=93}} After two years of miscarriages, the couple's second son was born in June 1859; he was also named Samuel Orchart Beeton.{{efn|The writer [[Nancy Spain]], in her biography of Beeton, put the month of birth as September,{{sfn|Spain|1948|p=124}} while Freeman puts the birth in the autumn.{{sfn|Freeman|1977|p=164}}}} Hughes sees the miscarriages as further evidence of Samuel's syphilis.{{sfn|Hughes|2006|pp=265–66}}

As early as 1857 the Beetons had considered using the magazine columns as the basis of a book of collected recipes and homecare advice, Hughes believes,{{sfn|Hughes|2006|p=188}} and in November 1859 they launched a series of 48-page monthly supplements with ''The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine''.<ref name="FT: Nov 59" /> The print block for the whole series of the supplements was set from the beginning so the break between each edition was fixed at 48 pages, regardless of the text, and in several issues the text of a sentence or recipe is split between the end of one instalment and the beginning of the next.{{sfn|Allen|van den Berg|2014|p=49}}{{sfn|Cox|Mowatt|2014|p=176}}

The Beetons decided to revamp ''The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine'', particularly the fashion column, which the historian Graham Nown describes as "a rather drab piece".{{sfn|Nown|1986|p=90}} They travelled to Paris in March 1860 to meet Adolphe Goubaud, the publisher of the French magazine ''Le Moniteur de la Mode''.{{sfn|Spain|1948|p=127}} The magazine carried a full-sized dress pattern outlined on a fold-out piece of paper for users to cut out and make their own dresses. The Beetons came to an agreement with Goubaud for the Frenchman to provide patterns and illustrations for their magazine. The first edition to carry the new feature appeared on 1 May, six weeks after the couple returned from Paris. For the redesigned magazine, Samuel was joined as editor by Isabella, who was described as "Editress".{{sfn|Hughes|2006|pp=269–77}} As well as being co-editors, the couple were also equal partners. Isabella brought an efficiency and strong business acumen to Samuel's normally disorganised and financially wasteful approach.{{sfn|Hughes|2006|pp=181, 272, 275–76}} She joined her husband at work, travelling daily by train to the office, where her presence caused a stir among commuters, most of whom were male.{{sfn|Nown|1986|pp=12, 96}} In June 1860 the Beetons travelled to [[Killarney]], Ireland, for a fortnight's holiday, leaving their son at home with his nurse. They enjoyed the sightseeing, although on the days it rained, they stayed inside their hotel and worked on the next edition of ''The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine''.{{sfn|Hyde|1951|pp=85–87}} Beeton was impressed with the food they were served, and wrote in her diary that the dinners were "conducted in quite the French style".{{sfn|Freeman|1989|p=281}}

In September 1861 the Beetons released a new, weekly publication called ''[[Queen (magazine)|The Queen, the Ladies' Newspaper]]''.{{efn|After merging with ''Harper's'' magazine to become ''Harper's & Queen'' in 1970, the publication then became ''Harper's'', before its current incarnation, ''[[Harper's Bazaar#Harper's Bazaar UK|Harper's Bazaar]]''.{{sfn|Beetham|2003|p=9}}<ref name="Mail: H&Q" />}} With the Beetons busy running their other titles, they employed [[Frederick Greenwood]] as the editor.{{sfn|Freeman|1977|pp=178–79}}