The Duties of Servants: A Practical Guide to the Routine of Domestic Service

by Jan Barnes

This guide was originally published in 1894. This new edition contains new illustrations and photographs of Victorian household objects from private collections.

This work appeals equally to both mistress and servant. A mistress will gather from its pages the actual services she is entitled to demand from each servant. The servant will learn of what his or her duties strictly consist.

Genres: Nonfiction, Historical

128 pages, Hardcover

First published September 28, 1993

Reviews

[LJ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is basically a reprint of a Victorian reference book, and as such it is interesting if you like historical curios. I think I picked it up many years ago in the gift shop of a museum or stately home. However, it is quite difficult to read. Every single example given on what each type of servant is expected to do is riddled with clauses depending on what type of home you live in and how many servants you employ, as this fairly small book tries to cover every conceivable home circumstance in Britain. It makes reading the book for fun very repetitive and only possible in tiny, tiny chunks at a time, and I'm not sure how much help this would have actually been as a practical guide for either a Victorian mistress or servant since it is so confusing to read. Clearly the layout has been handled poorly - it should have been set out by size of property, not by title of servants, since the servants are expected to cover such vastly different jobs depending on circumstance. It's constantly saying 'this servant's job is this unless you have this servant in which case they do this unless you have this servant in which case they do this and that one does that unless...', over and over until your eyes bleed. Anyway, I have kept hold of this book with the vague notion that it might be useful as research if I ever wrote a book set in the Victorian era, but since it is so difficult and confusing to read (read the two paragraphs on how to announce visitors correctly if you want to melt your brain), it might actually complicate matters further and since it is only one source who's to say if any of the contents are accurate? The author certainly shares a lot of judgemental opinions about certain classes of servant and mistress etc but never gives their credentials for being the head of all knowledge on such matters.

[Electra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very informative nice little book. Loved the vintage looking cover.