Editing Isabella Beeton (section)

==Legacy==
In May 1866, following a severe downturn in his financial fortunes, Samuel sold the rights to the ''Book of Household Management '' to [[Ward Lock & Co|Ward, Lock and Tyler]] (later Ward Lock & Co).{{sfn|Beetham|2004}} The writer [[Nancy Spain]], in her biography of Isabella, reports that, given the money the company made from the Beetons' work, "surely no man ever made a worse or more impractical bargain" than Samuel did.{{sfn|Spain|1948|p=240}} In subsequent publications Ward Lock suppressed the details of the lives of the Beetons—especially the death of Isabella—in order to protect their investment by letting readers think she was still alive and creating recipes—what Hughes considers to be "intentional censorship".{{sfn|Hughes|2006|p=4}} Those later editions continued to make the connection to Beeton in what Beetham considers to be a "fairly ruthless marketing policy which was begun by Beeton but carried on vigorously by Ward, Lock, and Tyler".<ref name="VLC: Beetham" /> Those subsequent volumes bearing Beeton's name became less reflective of the original.<ref name="VLC: Beetham" /> Since its initial publication the ''Book of Household Management '' has been issued in numerous hardback and paperback editions, translated into several languages and has never been out of print.<ref name="Orion: Beeton" /><ref name="WC: Mrs Beeton" />

[[File:Isabella Beeton.jpg|thumb|left|Isabella in 1860]]
Beeton and her main work have been subjected to criticism over the course of the twentieth century. Elizabeth David complains of recipes that are "sometimes slapdash and misleading", although she acknowledges that [[Prosper Montagné]]'s ''[[Larousse Gastronomique]]'' also contains errors.<ref name="Spec: ED" /> The television cook [[Delia Smith]] admits she was puzzled "how on earth Mrs Beeton's book managed to utterly eclipse&nbsp;... [Acton's] superior work",{{sfn|Hardy|2011|p=8}} while her fellow chef, [[Clarissa Dickson Wright]], opines that "It would be unfair to blame any one person or one book for the decline of English cookery, but Isabella Beeton and her ubiquitous book do have a lot to answer for."{{sfn|Dickson Wright|2011|p=372}} In comparison, the food writer [[Bee Wilson]] opines that disparaging Beeton's work was only a "fashionable" stance to take and that the cook's writing "simply makes you want to cook".<ref name="NS: Wilson" /> Christopher Driver, the journalist and food critic, suggests that the "relative stagnation and want of refinement in the indigenous cooking of Britain between 1880 and 1930" may instead be explained by the "progressive debasement under successive editors, revises and enlargers".{{sfn|Driver|1983|pp=13–14}} David comments that "when plain English cooks" were active in their kitchens, "they followed plain English recipes and chiefly those from the Mrs Beeton books or their derivatives".{{sfn|David|1961|pp=26–27}} Dickson Wright considers Beeton to be a "fascinating source of information" from a social history viewpoint,{{sfn|Dickson Wright|2011|p=374}} and Aylett and Ordish consider the work to be "the best and most reliable guide for the scholar to the domestic history of the mid-Victorian era".{{sfn|Aylett|Ordish|1965|p=226}}

Despite the criticism, Clausen observes that "'Mrs. Beeton' has&nbsp;... been for over a century the standard English cookbook, frequently outselling every other book but the Bible".<ref name="AS: Middle Classes" /> According to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', the term ''Mrs Beeton'' became used as a generic name for "an authority on cooking and domestic subjects" as early as 1891,<ref name="OUP: Hist" /><ref name="OED: Beeton" /> and Beetham opines that "'Mrs. Beeton' became a trade mark, a brand name".<ref name="VLC: Beetham" /> In a review by Gavin Koh published in a 2009 issue of ''[[The BMJ]]'', ''Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management'' was labelled a medical classic. In Beeton's "attempt to educate the average reader about common medical complaints and their management", Koh argues, "she preceded the family health guides of today".<ref name="BMJ: Classic" /> Robin Wensley, a professor of strategic management, believes that Beeton's advice and guidance on household management can also be applied to business management, and her lessons on the subject have stood the test of time better than some of her advice on cooking or etiquette.<ref name="BSR: management" />

Following the radio broadcast of ''Meet Mrs. Beeton'', a 1934 comedy in which Samuel was portrayed in an unflattering light,{{efn|''Meet Mrs. Beeton'', written by [[L. du Garde Peach]], was broadcast on 4 January 1934 on the [[BBC National Programme]]; [[Joyce Carey]] played Isabella and [[George Sanders]] played Samuel.<ref name="RT: Meet MrsB" />}} and ''Mrs Beeton'', a 1937 documentary,{{efn|''Mrs. Beeton'', written by [[Joan Adeney Easdale]], was broadcast on 9 November 1937 on the [[BBC Regional Programme]].<ref name="RT: Mrs Beeton" />}} Mayston Beeton worked with [[H. Montgomery Hyde]] to produce the biography ''Mr and Mrs Beeton'', although completion and publication were delayed until 1951. In the meantime Nancy Spain published ''Mrs Beeton and her Husband'' in 1948, updated and retitled in 1956 to ''The Beeton Story''. In the new edition Spain hinted at, but did not elucidate upon, on the possibility that Samuel contracted syphilis. Several other biographies followed, including from the historian Sarah Freeman, who wrote ''Isabella and Sam'' in 1977; Nown's ''Mrs Beeton: 150 Years of Cookery and Household Management'', published on the 150th anniversary of Beeton's birthday, and Hughes's ''The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs Beeton'', published in 2006.<ref name="Guard: Brown" />{{sfn|Hughes|2006|pp=401–07}} Beeton was ignored by the ''[[Dictionary of National Biography]]'' for many years: while Acton was included in the first published volume of 1885, Beeton did not have an entry until 1993.<ref name="Guard: Barnes" />

There have been several television broadcasts about Beeton. In 1970 [[Margaret Tyzack]] portrayed her in a solo performance written by [[Rosemary Hill]],<ref name="RT: Tyzack" /> in 2006 [[Anna Madeley]] played Beeton in a [[docudrama]],<ref name="RT: Secret life" /> and [[Sophie Dahl]] presented a documentary, ''The Marvellous Mrs Beeton'', in the same year.<ref name="BBC: Dahl" />

The literary historian Kate Thomas sees Beeton as "a powerful force in the making of middle-class Victorian domesticity",<ref name="VLC: ACD" /> while the [[Oxford University Press]], advertising an abridged edition of the ''Book of Household Management'', considers Beeton's work a "founding text"<ref name="OUP: Old 08" /> and "a force in shaping" the middle-class identity of the Victorian era.<ref name="OUP: New 08" /> Within that identity, the historian Sarah Richardson sees that one of Beeton's achievements was the integration of different threads of domestic science into one volume, which "elevat[ed] the middle-class female housekeeper's role&nbsp;... placing it in a broader and more public context".{{sfn|Richardson|2013|p=42}} Nown quotes an unnamed academic who thought that "Mrs Beetonism has preserved the family as a social unit, and made social reforms a possibility",{{sfn|Nown|1986|p=60}} while Nicola Humble, in her history of British food, sees ''The Book of Household Management '' as "an engine for social change" which led to a "new cult of domesticity that was to play such a major role in mid-Victorian life".{{sfn|Humble|2006|pp=14–15}} Nown considers Beeton

{{blockquote|text=...&nbsp;a singular and remarkable woman, praised in her lifetime and later forgotten and ignored when a pride in light pastry&nbsp;... were no longer considered prerequisites for womanhood. Yet in her lively, progressive way, she helped many women to overcome the loneliness of marriage and gave the family the importance it deserved. In the climate of her time she was brave, strong-minded and a tireless champion of her sisters everywhere.{{sfn|Nown|1986|p=116}}}}