Directions to servants / Jonathan Swift.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745.

Series:

100 pages

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Irony in literature.

Household employees--Humor--Early works to 1800.

Household employees.

Genre:

Humor.

Physical Description:

112 pages ; 20cm.

Edition:

New edition / foreword by Colm Tóibı́n.

Place of Publication:

London : Hesperus, 2003.

Summary:

Cooks brushing their hair into the stew; candlewax dripping into the expensive headdresses of dinner guests; maids carrying their mistresses' chamber pots in full view down the back stairs, and the whole cohort of servants watching and laughing as people slip over on the frozen contents of those same chamber pots, tipped outdoors on frosty nights -- Swift's satire is packed with these vivid and hilarious images of servants who are mischievous, lazy and downright larcenous. Directions to Servants takes the form of a handbook of manners, addressed to each servant in turn, and depicting what must be the ultimate upstairs/downstairs battle. With scathing wit, Swift pits master against servant in an endless struggle for order, frugality and the best bits of the roast. Written in the author's final years of sanity, Directions to Servants is a last hilarious outpouring of cynicism at a lifetime's accumulation of poor service.

Contents:

Directions to All Servants in General 3

The Butler 13

The Cook 25

The Footman 32

The Coachman 46

The Groom 47

The House Steward and Land Steward 53

The Porter 54

The Chambermaid 55

The Waiting-maid 60

The Housemaid 65

The Dairymaid 68

The Children's Maid 69

The Nurse 70

The Laundress 71

The Housekeeper 72

The Tutoress or Governess 73.

ISBN:

1843910624

OCLC:

53243186