Talk:Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Many or Few ?

"many people in Britain own a copy, ... although very few have actually come into contact with the book itself"

Seems contradictory - just different opinions ? --87.194.174.252 (talk) 15:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

List of editions

Chiswick Chap Why did you add this list of additions of the book? I have not seen editions listed anymore. Why not just link to Worldcat and let people read the list there?

This does seem like the kind of information which might be put into Wikidata at Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (Q2917183) with editing (Q397239). Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:42, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

I do it for all the cookery and other books I work on. Why is it part of an article? Because the number, geographic range, frequency and duration of publication - in Mrs Beeton's case, in every decade from that day to this, and in three continents - is itself clearly of encyclopedic interest, and I don't believe that having it in other places, however worthy, is equivalent to making it directly available here. In the case of WorldCat, it takes time to work out what's what - I can tell you - and readers who can reasonably be expected to glance through the remarkable list of editions here will not in 99.9% of cases go and look in other places. However worthy. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:01, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Of course, if you or another editor suffer from insomnia, please feel free to add them to wherever; I won't. But they have value here, whether they're there or not. By the way, I've formatted the list into columns, as usual, which may look rather better than the work-in-progress you saw. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:03, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Chiswick Chap I am not sure that it is encyclopedic. I have never seen any encyclopedia or anything other than library catalogs present a list of editions. Can you comment on how this is different from WP:INDISCRIMINATE, which says "To provide encyclopedic value, data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources." It also says that excessive listing of statistics is not allowed, and I wonder if other numerical data like this is appropriate. The fourth point in that section recommends avoiding software update logs, and new book edition records seems similar to me to a new software update version number. WorldCat seems like a primary source of information per WP:PRIMARY. I think the edition numbers have value and I want them to be available. In presenting them as a list in the article which takes up maybe 20% of the article space, I wonder if this is WP:UNDUE.

I am just thinking right now - there are arguments for keeping this and I am not sure what the precedent is or how this kind of information is usually managed. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:15, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

There are definitely arguments for keeping this! It is absolutely not indiscriminate - it is precisely the information about the book. Note that this is not an article about Mrs Beeton the person, where a mere statement of fact (that the book was first published, sold x) should suffice. Ask yourself what a book is and what goes to define it. It is a thing made of paper, leather, ink in a certain configuration. It has a publication history. When published on those dates, in those editions, in those cities, in those numbers, it sold well or badly; it attracted the notice of critics and thus gained WP:Notability. Publication history is central to the book.

Is WorldCat primary: no - it is a secondary source, as the primary information is from the books themselves, or the publishers (now that would be research, and arduous too). WorldCat has collated the information, and we are using it as a reliable secondary source.

Software, e-sources: actually, I deliberately didn't list these, only mentioning the first digital publication, a notable fact.

Another reason for listing the editions - very often, there are multiple editions available on Archive.org or Google books (typically free for Victorian era books), and a list of editions neatly puts links to these into order and context in a way that nothing else could.

As for the % of the article, there is currently very little description of the approach taken in the book (style of recipes, table of contents, example recipe), and even less of the vital Reception given to the book by (very numerous) critics and food writers over the past 150 years. So we needn't worry too much about the percentage - it will fall steadily as more of this material is added. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:35, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Since you seem to find this very ordinary and necessary section of the article troublesome, I've made the list collapsible, so all you'll see is "Editions" if you aren't interested in reading it; it takes up just a couple of lines. Other readers will be. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:44, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

Chiswick Chap I agree with you that WorldCat is secondary, not primary, for the reason you described. I was concerned about space in the article, but with this collapsed, that no longer is a concern I have. The information has value. I think all concerns that I had are now resolved. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:05, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

Oh good, I'm so glad to hear it. I'm getting on with the article. The table of contents is tricky - we could make a collapsible list of all 74 chapters, but I'll leave that for someone else... Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:07, 8 April 2015 (UTC)

What modern authors say

It is a well-attested fact that modern authors, cited in the text, have repeatedly compared Mrs B. with domestic goddesses, rightly or wrongly, and have similarly accused specifically her, unlike say Eliza Acton or Francatelli, the other famous cooks of the day, of "plagiarism". These two modern claims, however wrong-headed anyone may think them, are very well supported in reliable sources, and the article should rightly mention them, including summarizing them in the lead. Chiswick Chap (talk) 11:50, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

I generally agree with this. A comment was made on my Talk page; I self-plagiarise my response:

I don't know if you've seen my latest additions. I agree that modern commentators unanimously talk of plagiarism; by modern standards that is quite correct. What I'm trying to get across is that this, while it certainly happened, was normal for the time, as biographer Hughes clearly says. I'm not trying to "defend" Beeton, but to put events in the context of their time. I haven't heard of any complaints of plagiarism or lawsuits from the time, though I expect some people commented. Also, Beeton didn't systematically try to hide her sources (see my recent addition). Nowadays someone who copies ideas is criticised; Beeton was largely a person of her time. I haven't been simply reverting, but adding sourced material, in the expectation that it would be generally acceptable. I'll continue this on Talk: Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. Best wishes, Pol098 (talk) 12:55, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

I think I'd seen most of them, and it seems we largely agree now. I'm happy with "modern commentators call it plagiarism". Victorian attitudes were of course different, though Mrs B.'s practice was definitely rather sharp and would probably have been thought such even in the 18th century actually, when copying was rife. What Eliza Acton would have thought is another matter. As for leaving the eggs out of the sponge cake ... Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:33, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't think we ever actually disagreed. The comparison with modern high-profile writers was sourced in the body; I hadn't noticed when I deleted it. The eggs: the article generally points out that she wasn't a great cook, just a good collector and reorganiser. Maybe Elizabeth David's comment implying that the book was bad for learning cooking belongs in the intro? Best wishes Pol098 (talk) 16:11, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

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Book title and editions

Two queries: on the evidence of the correctly-captioned first edition cover the book is Beeton's Book of Household Management, edited by Mrs. Isabella Beeton, rather than Mrs. Beeton's ....; or from the 1st page (mirroring the title page) The Book of Household Management by Mrs. Isabella Beeton. Of course the present article name could reasonably be said to satisfy WP:COMMONNAME, but should not the article begin by referring to the real title, whichever meets bibliographical conventions? If the book's name changed in later editions, as stated in the lead, shouldn't that also be in the article per WP:MOSLEAD, and set out in the long list of editions.

Thanks. We've tried to be reasonably "correct" but the variation of names does make this difficult. Let's think whether a change is needed. I've added a mention that the "Beeton's ... " was only brief, which should explain why it was not the name by which the book was commonly known. That says to me that we have the title about right.

It is clear from the article that there were extensive changes to and expansion of the book's text over the years, but I wonder whether every entry on the Editions list is really a new edition, or also includes reprints with no change to the book itself, just a different date. To me a new edition either has some changes/additions to the text or is from a different publisher. Some clarification of this and the names used in the publication in the otherwise rather bare list would improve it a lot, I think. Davidships (talk) 20:11, 26 February 2019 (UTC)

The editions really did grow steadily, and there were many different texts with increasing page counts over the years. Whether it's appropriate for us to attempt a full analysis is a moot point. It may well be that a bibliophile academic has done such a thing. Chiswick Chap (talk) 21:55, 26 February 2019 (UTC)