The Servant’s Behaviour Book

The Servant’s Behaviour Book is a Victorian manual of conduct for young women going into domestic service, published around 1859. In plain, direct chapters it lays down the rules a maid was expected to follow, how to speak and answer, how to keep herself and her work clean, how to behave toward the family and toward tradesmen at the door, and how to manage her wages and her free time. Read today it opens a rare view onto the daily life of servants and the strict expectations of the middle class households that employed them. This free PDF and EPUB gives the complete text, a small but telling document in the social history of Victorian England.