ABSTRACT
The non-reflexive, everyday activity of shopping for the household in the eighteenth century has left minimal traces, so clues to this every day practice have had to be gleaned from a range of sources: letters, diaries, account books, cookery books and, drawn on in particular here, servants’ guides and household advice manuals.1 While the moralizing, prescriptive sections of the household advice manuals have often been studied by historians, the practical advice on housewifery, often combined in the very same volumes, has been much less explored yet provides valuable guidance on the nature of household shopping.
