What a delightful read. I love cooking, love recipes, cookbooks and learning about people who love food especially those from the past. This is such a wonderful and interesting read and one I will read again and again. It is an enjoyable read, is entertaining yet informative, interesting and fun.

Both women in this book are highly regarded foodies (if I can use that term) and lead very interesting lives. The author has done her research and has written a well set out book that is easy to read and is a book any Foodie, like myself, would love to read.

Thank you NetGalley and Pen & Sword for giving me the opportunity to read and review this book.

Isabella Mary Beeton(14 March 1836-6 Feb 1865) was an English journalist, editor, and writer renowned for her 1861 work Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management. She was born in London and, after schooling in Islington, north London, and Heidelberg, Germany, she married Samuel Orchart Beeton, an ambitious publisher and magazine editor.Agnes Bertha Marshall (24 August 1852–29 July 1905) was an English culinary entrepreneur, inventor, and celebrity chef.Marshall was particularly known for her work on ice cream and other frozen desserts, which in Victorian England earned her the moniker "Queen of Ices." Other English female cookery writers were Eliza Acton, Eliza Smith,Eliza Warren, Elizabeth Marshall,Elizabeth Moxon,Elizabeth Raffald, Hannah Glasse,Ann Cook,Agnes Catherine Maitland, Constance Peel,Maria Rundell,May Byron, and Christian Edington Guthrie Wright and Edith Nicholls aka Mrs Charles Clarke etc.The National Training School of Cookery now Domestic Sciences and The Marshall's School of Cookery were the two major Cookery schools then.In Victorian society: the "New Women" clamoured for greater participation in public life juxtaposed with the traditional ideal of femininity, the "Angel of the House".Despite the restrictiveness of traditional conceptions of femininity,not all women welcomed the "New Women" philosophies,some seeing the pursuit of political causes as vulgar, and preferring instead to pave other paths for women to seek their own agency. Writer Elizabeth Robins Pennell believed that women shouldn't abandon their traditional role in the kitchen,and that society should regard that, not as a mere frivolity, but as an inherently valuable pursuit worthy of respect.Pennell strove to recast the cult of domestic femininity, duly elevating cooking from the drudgery of bodily labour by encouraging women to express their culinary creativity in the kitchen. She saw cooking as "the ultimate form of art,” worthy of genius, admiration, and respect.Food was a key marker for social class and reflected status.Cookbooks were geared to the middle and upper classes,but former royal chef Charles Elme Francatelli published A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes.

This grabbed my attention at the mention of Mrs Beeton. I had a copy of her household book and was curious to learn more about her and Mrs Marshall. This book was entertaining, well researched.
I would highly recommended it for history nerds like myself.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an arc. All opinions expressed are my own.

I found a reference to Mrs Beeton in a mystery I was reading and this book came to my mind.
I like women and social history and this is the story of two women who played a relevant role in everyday life but are not well known as they should be.
Entertaining, well researched.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

Mrs Beeton and Mrs Marshall: A Tale of Two Victorian Cooks is a nonfiction history monograph/biography of Victorian/Edwardian cookery and two of its iconic giants, by historian Emma Kay. Due out 29th Feb 2024 from Pen & Sword, it's 216 pages and will be available in hardcover format.

This is an interesting deep-dive into the history of both titular persons and the ancillary figures in their lives. Although Mrs. Beeton is still a (relative) household name, Mrs. Marshall, at her time was equally well known, and the author does a very good job of rendering the minutiae both accessible and interesting.

The book's layout is straightforward. The first half covers the life and work of Agnes Marshall, the second half Isabella Beeton. They were very different people and from different backgrounds but lived and worked in the same general areas, separated by some decades.

The book is written in a layman accessible style and non-historians will find it easy to understand. The author has included copious notes and references throughout. It's also enhanced by the inclusion of numerous archival photos of antique kitchenalia and salient places to the story.

Five stars. It would be a superlative choice for public or school library acquisition, gift giving to fans of domestic history, kitchenalia, foodies, and biography lovers. Admittedly a niche book, but a very well written and readable one.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Emma Kay brings two fascinating culinary experts from the nineteenth century to life in this biography of Isabella Beeton and Agnes Bertha Marshall. Both women shared an interest in cooking and the teaching of cooking, but they expressed their interests in different ways, one through a cookbook and the other through a culinary school and a diverse culinary empire. By bringing these two women in conversation with each other, Kay demonstrates the scope of the professionalization of women’s cooking beyond the domestic sphere and the complexities of working during the Victorian era. Kay’s use of recipes throughout the book reflects some of the larger diversities of the evolution of the culinary world and gives readers a window into Beeton and Marshall’s kitchens and work during the Victorian era. The mix of biography and recipe book is clever and engages the readers with the primary source material, giving them a glimpse into Beeton’s book and Marshall’s cooking empire. Kay’s biography is a fascinating study of women’s work, the culinary world, and businesswomen from the Victorian era, and placing Beeton and Marshall in dialogue with each other really adds to the depth of analysis of this interesting historical biography of two interesting women.

This book compares and contrasts two women who were icons in the world of cookery in their day, though today Mrs Beeton is the more well-known of the two. I hadn't heard of Mrs Marshall before this and was interested in learning about her. The chapters mirror each other, giving some family background as well as descriptions of their work and influence.

I have to admit I was a little disappointed in this book. I'm a fan of Emma Kay's work and was expecting a lot from this book. For me, the family background read like census reports without necessarily giving me an understanding of how the extended family would have affected either of our main women, and the writing on their work felt like I needed to have at least some knowledge about them and their books and influence before reading this book. For me, this felt more like an analysis of information I was already supposed to know, but didn't. I think I'd have gotten more out of the book if I had read some of the biographies on Beeton and Marshall in the bibliography first, then come back to this one and read it as a comparison between the two women and how they influenced their times and why they were able to accomplish what they did. There is an excellent bibliography for anyone who wants to get into the reading in detail.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I chose this title because I know a little about Mrs Benton but nothing about Mrs Marshall. I enjoy cooking and looking through old recipe books so biographies of both lives was appealing. I’m not quite sure why, but I’ve struggled to engage with the book. I note the author has written numerous other books about cookery, utensils etc and is an authority on the subject.

She’s had access to extensive family papers related to Mrs Marshall and on that basis, I’m sure her research is meticulous. However,I’ve found the opening chapters which detail Mrs Marshall’s family are confusing and rather than sticking to fact, there’s speculation. This added little and felt like the thoughts of the author. It feels unstructured and rambling. At this point, because I’m finding it irritating, I’m putting the title to one side and I’ll tackle it again when I can settle more happily to it and perhaps ignore the style. So far, I’m disappointed because I was really looking forward to this book.

Very thorough book on Mrs Marshall and Mrs Beeton. It talks about their families, lives, and recipes. I have read Mrs Beeton's book. It was interesting to learn about their backstories.

Emma Kay does a great job in writing this type of book, I enjoyed getting to meet these two cooks. It worked in the Victorian setting and I never felt like it wasn’t researched.

A detailed history of these two women. I knew a bit about Mrs Beeton, but hadn't heard of Mrs Marshall, so it was interesting to find out about her and about the context that the two women lived in.

The beginning was a bit long winded and made the book hard to get into for me. I was unfamiliar with both ladies and enjoyed learning more about them both.

An absolutely fascinating, well-written and deeply-researched look into the lives and work of Isabella Beeton and Agnes Bertha Marshall, Victorian women who made names for themselves by writing about cookery and household management for an emerging middle class. I was familiar with (and own a cheap copy of) Mrs Beeton’s works, and was aware that she has been accused of plagiarism — turns out, that was more or less the norm back then, and seen much as we see “amplification” on social media today. Mrs. Marshall and her family were more entrepreneurial (and several decades after Mrs. Beeton, taking advantage of a freer society), establishing a cookery school and promoting their own kitchen equipment and ingredients.

Emma Kay’s book explores the Victorian era through the stories of these two women, highlighting how quickly society changed over the thirty years that separated them, the emergence of the suffragist movement — and how cooking and housekeeping themselves changed over that time.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy.

Emma Kay, Mrs Beeton and Mrs Marshall, A Tale of Two Victorian Cooks, Pen & Sword, Pen & Sword History Nov 2023.

Emma Kay has assembled a wealth of information about Isabella Beeton and Agnes Marshall, their families, the social and economic environment in which they worked and the culinary history they left. At first I wondered at the plethora of information about their families, stretching as it does so widely. I also found that, although accessible in the mode of Pen & Sword histories, the writing was less lively than has been the case for other volumes in this series. However, although my feeling about the writing remains, I was so wrong about the way in which Kay unfolds so much information about the era through her remarkable rendition of Beeton and Marshall’s family connections, characters and lives. The stories of Beeton and Marshall are not just their stories, they are outstanding histories of the period, and a valuable addition to this history.

Agnes Marshall is a less well-known person than Isabella Beeton, and this part of the book was particularly appealing. Of course, because Mrs Beeton is a household name and Mrs Marshall is not, the section on Mrs Beeton takes particularly fine skills to make her less well-known attributes part of the story that we think that we know. Kay has been assiduous in giving each woman her due, ensuring that the different ways in which they approached business practices, recipes, utensils and cookery books are demonstrated. For Kay, the world of women’s cookery is not just one dimensional. Each woman is depicted as having made a distinct contribution. One that I particularly enjoyed reading about is Agnes Marshall’s use of liquid nitrogen for freezing. So it isn’t the invention of luminaries of today’s culinary world! Who would have thought?

Marshall and her husband were also innovative in combining the requirements of Marshall’s recipes with producing the appliances needed to perfect them. One such invention was the ice box for ice cream recipes. However, Kay provides the details and illustrations of a myriad of implements which were designed and sold by the Marshalls. Again, this is evidence of the long history of chefs undertaking this type of work, replicated in chefs today lending their names to various appliances and cooking utensils.

Recipes are included in the book along with developing the discussion of whether they were unique, copied, or derivative. Or, as in Isabella Beeton’s case, none ever composed. This is a really engaging aspect of the book, provoking as it does debate about the originality and importance of each woman’s contribution to culinary history.

Kay provides citations and an extensive bibliography. Reading the latter is an absorbing enterprise in itself. It includes books (fiction and non-fiction), newspaper articles, local history society records, proceedings from The Old Bailey and journal articles ranging from the 1800s to contemporary writings. Jane Austen’s and Charles Dickens’ works are cited alongside Everyday Housekeeping (1896), The Royal Cookery Book and ‘Veggie Victorians: how Britain responded to the rise of the meat -free movement’ (2018) and material about the cities and society in which the women developed their skills and businesses, as well as detailed biographical works of Marshall and Beeton. Kay also appears, her Cooking up History: Chefs of the Past, Dining with the Georgians and Vintage Kitchenalia not only demonstrating her knowledge of the subject but providing enticing further reading.

Such an interesting book about two (2) passionate women, ahead of their time in my humble opinion, whom probably most of us novice type cooks never heard of. This book tells of their lives, their families and even shares some terrific recipes. I have to say Agnes was my favorite of the two (2). I also enjoyed the authors writing style - was like she was just telling me their stories directly. The book even contains pictures which is always an added bonus for me! Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Besides the fact that this book made me hungry, I had fun reading about two women-- Isabella Beeton and Agnes Marshall--who both attributed major contributions to the field of cookbooks, recipes and overall hospitality/cuisine. The book was split with two chapters on each woman and one chapter on their world around them. Overall, this breakdown works, however, I struggled with the sections on their backgrounds (in their first chapters). I felt it really would have helped to have a family tree so I knew who's who clearer. There was points when I went which Agnes are we talking about and when I went 'Isabella had another sister?! Did I miss this?'. Other than that one small niggling, I quite liked all the recipes, and reproductions of adverts and even seeing the images of Emma Kay's culinary efforts of doing some of these dishes (honestly, they made me even hungrier-- I think I may make macaroni and cheese tonight). I also really enjoyed seeing the similarities and differences between the two women. I thought today Agnes Marshall would be a celebrity chef a la Jamie Oliver or the Beardy Bikers; whereas I thought Isabella Beeton would be a celebrity lifestyle host a la Martha Stuart or Rachel Ray. ****For transparency, I got this book through Netgalley for an honesty review****

It was great to be able read the bio of Mrs Beeton and Mrs Marshall and to see the recipes that they used.