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Lora Roberts: Mrs. Beeton, The Domestic Art of Observation, and Sherlock Holmes Mrs. Isabella Beeton was an intrepid young woman who saw her numerous younger siblings to adulthood on the untimely death of her mother, married and produced her own family, and found time to write and publish a thousand pages on every domestic issue known to woman before suffering an untimely death of her own. She existed in the real world not long before Sherlock Holmes came into being in the fictional world. Although I had read Conan Doyle before I was eleven, I was in my thirties when Mrs. Beeton really made her impact on me. Like a host of PBS watchers, I had loved Upstairs Downstairs when it first aired. We were hooked on this turn-of-the-century soap opera, following the family and its servants through domestic and international catastrophes. Because of Upstairs Downstairs, I bought the facsimile edition of Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management when I saw it in the bookstore, and enjoyed the casual way she approached measurement in her recipes ("One small teacup full of rice, the weight of two eggs in butter and sugar"), and the strictures on how servants are hired, trained, and supervised. The housekeeper's job was obviously a difficult one, involving a lot of executive ability and a strong back (and stomach). Mrs. Beeton made several points on the importance of observation and deduction in keeping a house clean and a staff in control. I was still chewing that over when PBS showed Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. In the earliest episodes, he had the mannerisms of the pre-Reichenbach Falls Holmes down perfectly. I especially enjoyed the episode where Irene Adler outsmarts him. I was inspired to create a woman, Charlotte Dodson, whose powers of detection equaled his, whose intellect stood beside his, and who would inspire him with a passion he couldn't dismiss at the end of the story. And who should this woman be? Not an opera dancer or adventurer, because that's a man's conception of a fascinating woman. She would be a housekeeper, and Mrs. Beeton would hover over the story like a guardian angel by providing quotations to head each chapter. That book, The Affair of the Incognito Tenant, has gotten a lot of positive press since its spring 2004 release. I think Sherlock Holmes would have approved of Isabella Beeton, with her active approach to managing a household. And I think Mrs. Beeton would have approved of Charlotte. Mrs. Beeton would not, however, have approved of Holmes. In her firmly-ruled household, no gentleman would ever discharge firearms in the parlor.
More from Lora:
Lee Harris ~ Jonnie Jacobs ~ Valerie Wolzien ©2005-06 by Lee Harris, Jonnie Jacobs, Lora Roberts and Valerie Wolzien. |