A gentleman wishing to know the correct form for addressing a lady with whom he is conducting a secret office romance, or a lady sick with worry as to the precise dimensions of the crenulations on her daughter's wedding invitations, will soon have their minds set at ease.
Next month Barbara Cartland's Etiquette Handbook: A Guide to Good Behaviour from the Boudoir to the Boardroom will be reissued, half a century after its first publication.
The book includes such insights as: 'I cannot stress too often that on every formal occasion, whether it is luncheon, a bazaar or a meeting, a hat should be worn.' And: 'Unless she is ill, a woman should get up and cook her husband's breakfast before he goes to work in the morning.' When opening the door to female guests, that husband should say: 'Would you like to go upstairs? You will find my wife's bedroom if you turn left on the top landing.'
As befits the age, much correct form is dependent on gender as well as social position. 'It is very wrong for a woman to chatter with other women across the table unless it is on a subject likely to interest their male partners' is advice unlikely to win many friends in the modern feminist movement.
Yet Cartland does not shy away from discussion of sexuality. She warns against the attitude that 'sex is a common, dirty urge found among the lower classes, whose only interests are beer and bed'. When it does come to 'the act of love ... there need be no reserves, no barriers, no restrictions ... a woman should always appear to be a nymph fleeing from a satyr'.
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