This was one very clever marketing pitch from AbeBooks.com, where I do most of my out-of-print book shopping. I got an email from them linking to this page:
AbeBooks: Courting to Dueling: Antiquated Etiquette Guides.
They must have guessed from my buying history the type of books that would appeal to me (and they were right).
Unfortunately, the one I’m dying to get my hands on—The Complete Servant-Maid or Maiden’s Companion; General Directions to Maid-Servants by Hannah Wolley (published 1720 or so, they say, but written in the late 1600’s)—is, alas, $962.99.
I’m not a collector; I just want to read the text. First I checked Books Google: no luck. (At which point I began grumbling: are etiquette books for ladies not worthy of scanning?)
Then I turned to Amazon.com: bonanza. There are a number of reproductions available for under $20.00. Click! I can’t wait to get it.
For more on that enterprising woman, Hannah Woolley (shown above)—the Martha Stewart of her day—begin with Wikipedia.
People get their knickers in a knot these days about etiquette – that it is stuffy, archaic and restricts individual freedoms. And I suppose that is so. But there must have been a great comfort in knowing what to do in each social situation, especially novel situations.
That begs the question of who used these books of etiquette and when. Were they given to a new bride, to read in total before she moved into her new home and life? Did families leave the book in their library and refer to relevant chapter only when an issue arose?
Good question, Helen. Wouldn’t we love to know! All we do know that there was quite a market for these books. People were desperate for the information.
You can tell quite a bit about a society by the rules proscribed. For example: Do not blow your nose on the tablecloth. Well!