The Country Housewife and Lady's Director in the Management of a House, and the

Bradley, Richard, 1688-1732Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.5
Word count
485K words
Chapters
49

Tags

English Originals Home and Living Home Health CareFamily ManagementDaily WellnessCooking TechniquesNutritional PairingDaily LivingLife WisdomStep-by-Step GuidePractical GuideFemale Perspective

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Country Housewife and Lady's Director in the Management of a House, and theAuthor: Bradley, Richard, 1688-1732,Language: English, Class: TX: Technology: Home economics, Release Date: Jan 1, 2005

Editor's review

This book is an eighteenth-century household management guide by Richard Bradley. Its title indicates that it is addressed to country housewives and ladies and that its content centers on the coordination and daily operation of domestic affairs. As an early household text, its value lies not in offering modern life tips that can be directly copied but in presenting the family economy, division of labor, and everyday knowledge of three hundred years ago; it is therefore of source-material significance for those studying social history, family history, and food culture. The free Project Gutenberg edition makes this public-domain text easy to obtain and suitable for excerpting and subject searches. It should be read with a historical perspective, noting that many practices depended on the products, utensils, and social conditions of the time and cannot simply be applied to today's kitchen. For general readers, it is more like a window onto the daily life of the past.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read selectively by topic: first look at the chapters on household management and daily affairs in the table of contents, then read the important ones in detail.
  2. While reading, note practices that depended on the products and utensils of the time, and avoid directly applying them to modern life.
  3. Compare with other sources on eighteenth-century social life to identify which ideas were typical of the period.
  4. The English original uses older vocabulary; consult a historical dictionary or annotated edition for unfamiliar expressions.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49

FAQ

Is this book suitable for following recipes or managing a household? It should not be directly copied. The practices in the book depended on the products, utensils, and social conditions of the eighteenth century; modern kitchens and family structures are very different, so it is better read as historical material.
What is the main value of this book? Its value lies in presenting early household concepts and details of daily life, providing primary texts for the study of social history, family history, and food culture rather than modern practical tips.
Can I understand it without historical background knowledge? You can read it, but there will be a gap. Many terms and practices in the book require historical background to understand; it is advisable to read it alongside related social history works or annotated materials.
Does the Project Gutenberg edition have modern annotations? This edition is a free public-domain e-book that usually preserves the original text and generally contains no modern introduction or detailed annotations; readers must supplement the background knowledge themselves.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Bradley, Richard, 1688-1732 Author · English · 1688–1732

Richard Bradley (1688–1732) was a British botanist and gardening writer; public information about his life is limited. The two works he left behind address, respectively, the everyday management of the household and garden and a matter of public epidemic concern: the first is a practical guide for country housewives and heads of household on running a home and organising gardening and household affairs, while the second discusses the plague at Marseilles, showing his concern with real social issues. Bradley's writing is practical and concrete, aimed at ordinary readers rather than academic debate, and thus has some significance in the spread of early agricultural and gardening knowledge into domestic life.