Just as Nigella Lawson and Martha Stewart have turned Americans and Britons into nations of wannabe domestic goddesses, the Victorians had their own preacher in the shape of Mrs. Isabella Beeton.

How did a woman who couldn't cook produce the world's most famous recipe book? Dead by the age of 28, this cultural icon was not the crinolined matron Britons have been led to believe, but instead a sassy, feisty, and very talented journalist and editor.