If Nell Gwynn is the spirit and symbol of Restoration disorder; sensual, bawdy, bright and buxom,the Queen of the English counter-reformation, then Mrs. Beeton is the Victorian Lady Triumphant, the ne plus ultra of the Puritan counter-counter-reformation. She wrote the manual for housewives that taught generations of bourgeois women not only how and what to cook, but how to clean, hire and fire servants, raise "proper" children, serve God and be (wait for it) respectable.
There was a fun BBC TV movie shown on PBS last year (?) about this lady, "The Secret Life of Mrs. Beeton." It's available to rent.
There is also a very thorough biography (would she want any other kind?) called The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton, by Kathryn Hughes, though it is sadly only available in a British edition. (Look for used copies on www.abebooks.com.)
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