Handbook of Housekeeping for Small Incomes – Florence Stacpoole c1897 Cookery
 
Author
Florence Stacpoole – Diplomée of the London Obstetrical Society; Lecturer to the National Health Society and Councils of Technical Education.
 
Title
Handbook of Housekeeping for Small Incomes
 
Publication Details
Published by Walter Scott, Limited, Paternoster Square, London
Undated on title page – circa 1897, confirmed by publisher’s catalogue and internal advertisements (including Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee references).
 
Edition & Dating
First edition, c.1897 (inferred)
The internal adverts for The Theatrical World of 1897 and the Diamond Jubilee Commemoration Volume firmly place this volume in 1897.
 
Historical & Bibliographic Context
This remarkable late-Victorian manual was written for women managing households on limited incomes, offering not only cookery, but full instruction in domestic economy, health, child-rearing, and thrift.
 
Florence Stacpoole challenges the idea that housekeeping is “natural” knowledge, arguing instead that it must be learned, especially by those without wealth. The book reflects the social reality of late-19th-century Britain, when working- and lower-middle-class women were expected to run efficient, moral, economical homes.
 
This volume covers:
• Economical housekeeping
• Servant management
• Household health
• Cookery & food economy
• Infant care
• Invalid feeding
• Legal notes for housewives
 
It is both a cookery book and a social document, showing how people actually lived, ate, and survived on limited means in Victorian Britain.
 
Notable Recipe & Content Features
This book contains fascinating period recipes including:
• Mock Turtle Soup (with calf’s head & forcemeat balls)
• Victorian curry using apples, prunes, chutney, and slow simmering
• Brain fritters
• Ox-head economy dishes
• Potato loaf
• Flora’s fritters (rose-petal fritters!)
• Devilled tongue
 
These are not “modern” recipes; they reflect thrift, slow cooking, nose-to-tail eating, and very different flavour expectations.
 
This makes the book perfect for:
• Social history lovers
• Food history collectors
• Victorian domestic life enthusiasts
 
Physical Description
 
Binding:
Dark green cloth over boards and spine
Gilt lettering and gilt botanical decoration on spine
All edges gilt
Size: approx. 19 × 13 × 3.1 cm
Weight: approx. 581g
Condition Report
 
Exterior:
• Cloth rubbed and worn at edges
• Small rips at corners
• Creasing to spine
• Small splits where spine meets front board
• Some discolouration and marks
• Binding remains solid and usable
 
Interior:
• Pages lightly tanned
• Pencil inscription “(1897)” on title page
• Light pencil marks on p.346
• Occasional light foxing and marks
• Predominantly uncreased
• No text loss
• Some sewing repairs to inner margins (pp.335–346 and contents)
• Light cracks in gutter in several places
• A handful of pages loose at lower inner margin seam (but secure overall)
 
Completeness:
All 429 pages of main text present
Plus multiple indexes
Plus 18-page publisher’s catalogue at rear
 
Why This Book Matters
This is not just a cookery book; it’s a window into how people actually lived.
It shows how Victorian families:
• Ate on tiny budgets
• Used every scrap of food
• Cooked for health and economy
• Ran households with almost no modern conveniences
 
It fits beautifully with the Literary Treasures ethos: books that carry lived human stories, not just text.