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Audiobook edition · 4 h 29 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if marriage came with instructions as firm and tidy as a recipe for dinner?
In The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives, Elizabeth Strong Worthington borrows the calm, commanding voice of a household cookery guide and applies it to marriage. Instead of roasting meat, the subject is managing a spouse. The joke rests on that confident tone: surely skill, patience and the right method can put married life in order.
This short satire turns its dry humor toward Victorian advice about home life, manners and what husbands and wives owe each other. Worthington makes the borrowed form do the work, letting its certainty become part of the joke. Beneath the light touch sits a familiar question: can any tidy set of instructions tell people how to live together?
What you’ll discover
- A recipe for laughter Watch the trusted voice of the kitchen turn marriage into a matter of method.
- Certainty with a wink Enjoy dry humor that draws its force from advice delivered without a trace of doubt.
- Marriage as a craft Consider the sly promise that patience and skill can make a spouse manageable.
- Victorian rules at home Look at expectations for husbands and wives through the lens of light social satire.
- A joke still familiar Recognize the lasting appeal of neat instructions for the untidy business of living together.
Who will love it
You will love this book if you enjoy domestic comedy, quick talk between friends, farm mishaps, and warm-hearted stories about how a marriage grows.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A marriage joke touches real fear
- Randolph mistakes confidence for understanding
- A happy home deepens Steve's loneliness
- Nannie hears a proposal as escape
- Country life tests Steve's good nature
- Violets speak more gently than anger
- Nannie turns the cooking joke around
- Marriage needs kindness and mutual respect
- Look behind a person's bad temper
Who’s who
- Steve LovelandA gentle, quiet newspaperman who speaks with a poker and marries a wild young girl out of kindness, then tries to farm.
- Nannie BranscomeA sharp-tongued, elfin orphan raised by a worldly aunt, who has never been shown affection and wants only to escape a rich suitor.
- Randolph ChanceSteve's talkative best friend, who boasts of managing women, marries Constance, and settles in a country cottage.
- Constance ChanceRandolph's wife, a storyteller and homemaker, who at first judges Nannie coolly and later learns how lonely she is.
- Mrs. LamontNannie's worldly aunt, who wants her niece to marry a millionaire and sees her mainly as an investment.
- Sarah MariaA savage cow who attacks nearly everyone and sends Steve through windows, over fences and into the dust.
- Bridget O'FlanniganThe Irish cook, Nannie's old friend, who shrieks, prays and complains whenever the cow is near.
- Old HayseedA cheerful neighbor in smoked glasses, who leans on the fence and gives Nannie blunt, kindly wisdom.
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The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives
by Elizabeth Strong Worthington · 1900
A club of girls jokes about being cooked like fish, then one of them marries a gentle man and a furious cow.
Medium level2–5 hours to readEnglish
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In short
What if a proposal sounded like an invitation to dinner, with the guest as the main course? In the first chapter of The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives, four young women in a parlor club tease one another about a newspaper article called How to Cook Wives.
The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 35 min2 h fast, 3 h 5 min slow
- Length
- 36,600 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1900by Elizabeth Strong Worthington
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A club of girls cooks up the question
The book opens in a parlor where four girls have formed a club. Prue is elected president before anyone calls for a vote. She keeps calling the girls to order, and Hilda keeps answering with jokes. The business before the house is a newspaper article called How to Cook Wives.
The scraps are funny because they sound like a recipe. First catch your fish. Start with a clear fire, not too hot. Some husbands, the writer says, make things so hot in private that their wives are reduced to cinders, then serve them cold in public.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 15 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1900
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 2 h 50 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Worthington, Elizabeth Strong. The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-gentle-art-of-cooking-wives.
Worthington, E. S. (2026). The gentle art of cooking wives. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-gentle-art-of-cooking-wives (Original work published 1900)
Worthington, Elizabeth Strong. The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-gentle-art-of-cooking-wives.
@book{worthington2026gentle,
author = {Worthington, Elizabeth Strong},
title = {The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/the-gentle-art-of-cooking-wives},
note = {First published 1900}
}
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What is The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives about?
It follows Steve Loveland, a gentle newspaperman, and Nannie Branscome, a headstrong girl he marries to rescue from a bad match. Their country life, a fierce cow, and a joking newspaper article about cooking wives shape their growth.
What does How to Cook Wives mean in the book?
It is the title of a newspaper article that treats a husband as a cook and his wife as a dish. The joke returns throughout the book, linking recipe words to how people treat each other at home.
Who are the main characters?
Steve Loveland and Nannie Branscome are the central couple. Randolph Chance, his friend, and Randolph's wife Constance form the second pair. The cook Bridget, the cow Sarah Maria and the neighbor Hayseed add comedy and comment.
The author
Elizabeth Strong Worthington
1851–1916 · American writer
Elizabeth Strong Worthington was an American writer who was born in 1851 and died in 1916. She lived during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and wrote in English. Her works include The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives and How to Cook Husbands.
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