Powell, Margaret. Below Stairs.

London: Peter Davies, 1968 (NY: St. Martin, 2012).

In 1920, thirteen-year-old Margaret Langley, like many English girls her age, had to go out to work. Her father, a house-painter, was unemployed for half the year and with five children in the family, money was very tight indeed. Margaret had to take the earliest opportunity to support herself.

Warren, Mrs. [Eliza]. How I Managed My House on £200 (One Thousand Dollars) a Year.

Boston: Loring, 1866.

There was an outpouring of household management manuals and similar how-to books in the mid-19th century to cater to the burgeoning middle class in Britain, especially for those young brides, like the author, who hadn’t the slightest notion or experience of how to run a household on a limited budget. Some, like Mrs. Beeton’s book, became the canon, while others, like this one, took a more homely, less authoritative approach. Because Eliza (or “Millie,” or “Minnie” — both names appear in her reported conversations) was left a widow after some eighteen years and then became a very successful housekeeper for another widow with somewhat more income, her own experiences must have taken place in at least the 1830s — the very dawn of the Victorian era.